■iini' 


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CHINA 

HER  HISTORY,  DIPLOMACY,  AND   COMMERCE 


RICl'I    AND    PAUL    ZI    (COSTUME    OF    MING    DYNASTY) 

From  au  old  picture  published  by  the  Chinese  Jesuit  Pfere  Hoang 


iFronlispiece 


THANSLATIOX  OP   WORDS  IN  COHNKH 

The  sire  Zi  (ciiuonisod  as)  WSn-tiiir/  (leanieil, 
resolute)  iritli  Li-isz  Mii-l(ti  ("jiicius,"  or 
lliccl  Matthew)  discussiiiy  the  ]\'unl  pictvre 


CHINA 

HER   HISTORY,   DIPLOMACY,  AND    COM- 

MERGE,    FROM     THE     EARLIEST     TIMES 

TO  THE  PRESENT  DAY 


BY   E.    H.    PARKER 

PROFESSOR   OF  CHINESE   AT   THE   VICTORIA   UNIVERSITY   OF  MANCHESTER  ;    FORMERLT 

OHE  OF  HIS   majesty's   CONSULS  IN   CHINA  ;    IN  1892-3  ADVISER  ON  CHINESE  AFFAIRS 

TO  THE   BURMA  GOVERNMENT 


WITH  MAPS 


SECOND   EDITION 


NEW   YORK 
E.    P.   BUTTON   AND   COMPANY 

1917 


PREFACE 

It  is  just  sixteen  years  since  I  penned  prefatory 
remarks  to  the  first  edition  of  this  book  :  this 
was  when  the  South  African  War  and  the 
'*  Boxer  "  trouble  were  both  being  settled  up, 
the  first  having  naturally  tied  our  hands  a  little 
in  dealing  satisfactorily  with  the  second ;  but 
the  alliance  with  Japan  in  1902  restored  a  balance 
satisfactory  to  our  general  interests  in  China  and 
the  Indian  Ocean,  whilst  two  great  wars  have 
had  the  effect  of  transferring  to  Japan  a  large, 
well-merited,  and  honourable  share  in  the  policing 
of  the  China  seas  as  the  trusted  ally  of  both 
Russia  and  Britain.  Meanwhile  China  herself 
has  passed  through  the  throes  of  an  incalculable 
upheaval,  and  a  numxber  of  important  events  fore- 
shadowed in  the  earlier  impressions  of  this  work 
have  actually  taken  place.  Apart  from  the 
disappearance  on  very  generous  terms  of  the 
once  prudent  and  illustrious  Manchu  dynasty 
itself — a  picturesque  catastrophe  which  after  all 
chiefly  concerns  the  family  pride  of  a  few  foreign 
princely  families, — means  have  been  found 
quietly  to  merge  the  mass  of  settled  Manchus, 
including  their  characteristic  "  pigtail,"  in  the 
general  body  of  Chinese- — from  whom,  especially 
in  the  north,  the  males  are  physically  almost 
indistinguishable- — with  liberty  to  intermarry, 
engage  in  trade,  travel  freely,  and  so  on  ;  yet  the 
"  pigtail  "  is  by  no  means  penally  tabued,  even 


vi  PREFACE 

among  Chinese  cranks.  Although  the  Republi- 
can flag  of  five  colours,  adopted  with  that  end  in 
view,  gave  expression  to  the  hope  that  Mongols, 
Tibetans,  and  Turki  (Mussulmans)  might  also 
find  in  the  vast  undivided  domain  a  common 
level  to  the  general  weal,  yet  separative  aspira- 
tions to  complete  independence  may  in  the  end 
defeat  this  desire  so  far  as  the  two  first  are  con- 
cerned, whilst  the  Chinese  themselves  apparently 
now  see  clearly,  so  far  as  touches  the  third,  that 
only  a  modified  equality  can  be  arranged  for 
uncompromising  religionists,  some  Turki  speak- 
ing, other  Chinese  speaking,  who  live  largely 
under  the  government  of  their  own  princes  and 
beys,  or  even  under  semi-independent  Chinese 
Muslim  generals. 

The  last  of  the  three  new  chapters  added  to 
the  present  edition  endeavours  to  give  a  succinct 
account  of  how  political  reform  arose  from 
humiliating  foreign  defeat,  and  how  the  hitherto 
suppressed  and  stunted  spirit  of  democracy  as- 
serted itself  through  these  vague  yearnings  for 
reform,  so  there  is  no  prefatory  need  to  labour 
this  particular  point  again  here.  Suffice  it  to  say 
that,  although  in  Europe  we  seem  day  by  day  to 
hear  chiefly  of  revolts  and  political  squabbles 
in  China,  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  "  Eighteen 
Provinces  "  are  not  in  such  a  very  parlous  condi- 
tion after  all,  the  chief  reason  for  this  modicum  of 
happiness  being  that  China  is,  as  it  ever  has  been, 
a  nation  of  small  owners  and  hardy  cultivators, 
whose  ethical  teaching  has  for  2,000  years  past 
inculcated  a  spirit  of  deference  and  order,  a 
right  to  self-protection,  and  a  family  or  clannish 
detachm.ent  from  public  and  political  authority. 
In  spite,  then,  of  alarums  and  excursions  on  all 
sides,  the  Foreign  Customs  revenue  for  1916  is 
in  sterling  the  very  highest  ever  collected,  whilst 
the  Salt  Gabelle,  under  the  vivifying  influence  of 


PREFACE  vii 

Sir   Richard   Dane's   purifications,   promises   to 
rival   the    Customs   itself  in    "  rich   blessings." 
Even  the  Post-office,  owing  its  success  to  French 
brilliancy   of  strategic   management,   is   a  vast 
paying   concern.     I   have   not   given   a   special 
chapter    to    Railways,    for    they    are    diffusing 
themselves  apace  over  the  Chinese  dominions 
in  such  wise  that  any  statistics  ventured  upon 
to-day  would  be  practically  obsolete  a  year  hence. 
Up  to  the  moment  of  writing  15,000  miles  of 
first-class  lines  have  been  conceded,   of  which 
total  two-fifths  are  now  actually  working,  with 
another  fifth  under  construction.     It  is  under- 
stood that  Russia,  Japan,  Britain,  and  France 
are  financially  interested  to  the  extent  of  over 
sixty    million    pounds    sterling,    against    seven 
millions  for   Germany   and   fifteen   millions  for 
China    herself    (at    present    high    silver  rates). 
All  these  railways  develop  trade  in  a  marvellous 
and  scarcely  hoped-for  way  by  opening  up  vast 
tracts  of  country  twenty  years  ago  almost  as 
little  known  to  the  foreign  trader  as  Tibet,  and 
by  enabling  the  industrious    Chinese  farmer  to 
get  rid  of  vast  surpluses  of  produce  formerly  too 
often  an  indigestible  drug  on  the  local  markets  : 
with  the  absence  of  roads  and  banking  facilities 
there  was  previous  to  the  advent  of  the  steam 
horse  no  stimulus  to  produce  m.ore  than  at  best 
a  prosperous  clan  subsistence,  whereas  now  the 
railway  brings  exchange  imports    so    to    speak 
to  the  very  door ;  and  the  foreign  commercial 
traveller,  no  longer  condemned  to  sail  in  cramped 
boats  over  dangerous  rapids,  or  to  wheelbarrow 
and    donkey-riding    over    apologies    for    roads, 
for  weeks   at  a  time,  with   unrestful  repose  in 
verminous  inns,  can  now  fly  hither  and  thither 
with  his  flaming  posters,   heavy  samples,   and 
cash   exchange   or   credit   facilities   in   a    com- 
fortable sleeping-carriage,   creating    demand  in 


viii  PREFACE 

every  village  for  foreign  "fancies."  Besides,  the 
Post  Parcel  Office  is  teaching  the  interior  Chinese 
that  a  vast  miscellaneous  trade  can  be  done  in 
this  way  too  without  any  effort  at  all. 

Long  before  the  "  Boxer  "  war  and  the  con- 
sequent native  yearning  for  better  things  in  their 
political   administration,    it    had   been    evident 
that  the  German  merchants  were  taking  more 
pains  and  bestowing  more  intelligent  thought  in 
the  conduct  of  their  business  than  the  conserva- 
tive and  unimaginative  British  trader  of  the  old 
school.     All  over  the  Far  East  they  enjoyed  com- 
plete "freedom  of  the  seas,"  and  in  our  colonies 
and  settlements,  where  they  were  much  esteemed 
as  solid  and  orderly  guests,  they  shared  absolute 
equality  of  right  and  privilege.;    but  they  never 
at  any  time  showed  any  particular  inclination  to 
"  rough  it "    either  in   the  commercial   or  the 
missionary  line,  and  it  was  only  when  the  French 
railway  to  Yiin  Nan  and  the  steamer  facilities  to 
Sz  Ch'wan  and  Hu  Nan  opened  up  Central  and 
West  China,  in  a  way  never  seen  before,  that  the 
careful  Germans,  finding  they  could  operate  safely 
and  comfortably,  hastened  to  take  full  advantage 
of    British,    French,    and   Japanese   pioneering. 
The  result  has  been  that  they  have  opened  up, 
chiefly   in   Central   China,    entirely   new   export 
trades  in  native  produce,  besides  securing  almost 
a    monopoly    of   electrical,    mining,    and    other 
engineering  in  provinces   scarcely  even  visited, 
except  by  missionaries,  twenty  years  ago.     More- 
over, in  doing  all  this  they  have  received  from 
unsuspecting  British  banks  facilities  greater  than 
any  German  bank  would  risk.     There  may  have 
been  good-natured  professional  envy,  often  mixed 
with  admiration,  on  the  part  of  the  less  active 
British    trader    of    "muddied    oaf"    tendency, 
but  there  was  certainly  no  angry  hostility,  still 
less  any  of  the  malignant  Prussian  hatred  the 


PREFACE  ix 

existence  of  which  the  Great  War  has  generated 
and  propagated  in  the  naturally  meek  German 
mind  :  the  superior  energy  and  foresight  of 
the  Teuton  traders  were  freely  if  regretfully  ad- 
mitted, and  many  were  the  occasions  on  which 
British  and  American  consuls,  customs  officials, 
travellers,  etc. — the  present  writer  himself  often 
included' — called  attention  publicly  to  the  neglect 
on  the  part  of  British  trade  generally  to  revise 
its  methods  ;  especially  in  the  direction  of  adver- 
tising, preparing  intelligible  price-lists,  visiting 
likely  customers  on  the  spot,  granting  less  rigid 
terms  of  credit,  shaking  off  compradoric  strangu- 
lation, treating  the  native  trader  more  cour- 
teously and  indulgently,  and  so  on. 

It  is  right  to  admit  that  these  lessons  have  been 
taken  to  heart  in  a  few  cases,  and  it  is  well  known 
that  certain  British  tobacco  and  patent  medicine 
enterprises  have  made  huge  successes  on  these 
new  lines ;  one  or  two  British  exporters  of  fresh 
and  frozen  provisions,  following  Teuton  example, 
have  organised  proper  receiving,  cleaning,  and 
packing  establishments  for  facilitating  the  col- 
lection, shipping,  and  distribution,  and  for  the 
sorting  and  repacking  in  workmanlike  condition 
of  edible  produce  ;  and  besides  this,  at  least  one 
British  firm  or  syndicate  has  secured  a  strong 
controlling  position  in  connection  with  the  out- 
put of  important  Chinese  mines  ;  so  there  is  a 
fair  prospect  that  in  the  near  future  the  old 
"  sit  still  at  the  chief  port  and  as  to  inland 
depend  upon  the  comprador e "  system  will 
gradually  be  replaced  by  one  of  more  hustle 
and  energy,  especially  as  the  Shanghai  Munici- 
pality'— and  no  doubt  other  analogous  bodies 
— has  recently  seriously  roused  itself  to  wake- 
fulness upon  the  necessity  of  teaching  the  young 
British  trader  practical  Chinese,  so  that  import 
agents,  buyers,  and  exporters  may  move  freely 


X  PREFACE 

off  beaten  tracks  and  visit  native  exporters, 
importers,  producers,  and  consumers  at  any  likely 
spot  in  the  interior,  making  their  own  transport, 
likin^  and  credit  arrangements,  free  from  the 
shackles  of  compradoric  restraint  and  monopoly. 
Honourable  competition  on  these  lines  may  easily 
be  hoped  for  in  neutral  China ;  but  so  long  as  the 
tame  and  subservient  German  race  remains  under 
the  baleful  spell  of  the  neurotic  Prussian  braggart 
and  moral  abortion  whose  blasphemous  buf- 
fooneries have  plunged  Western  civilisation  into  a 
caldron  of  boiling  passion,  making  both  cowards 
and  bullies  even  of  the  non- Prussian  army  and 
navy  officers,  it  will  be  quite  impossible,  so  far 
as  British  colonies  are  concerned,  to  grant  or  to 
allow  British  banks  to  grant  to  German  banks 
and  traders  the  generous  facilities  they  enjoyed 
in  such  amplitude  before  the  war,  and  of  which 
they  everywhere  took  a  mean  advantage,  under 
the  cunning  and  unscrupulous  wire-pulling  of 
Potsdam,  in  order  to  secure  in  their  own  exclu- 
sive hands  the  key-strings  of  finance,  and  the 
key-commodities  of  commerce  and  (ultimately) 
of  war.  Until  this  contempt  of  human  law  and 
decency  be  purged  clear,  the  German — official, 
commercial,  or  other — should  be  treated  as  a 
lupinum  caput,  unworthy  of  trust  in  or  near  any 
isolated  fold,  and  above  all  not  be  suffered  to 
gain  a  foothold  anywhere  in  the  Far  East, 
whether  at  Tsing-tao  or  in  Indo-China.  Every 
one  knows  the  many  innate  good  qualities  of  the 
genuine  Germans  ;  but  the  Prussian  Old  Man  of 
the  Sea  must  be  first  cast  off  by  the  German 
Sinbad,  and  ample  reparation  made  before  pardon 
can  be  granted  or  any  off  chances  taken.  ^ 

1  In  Vol.  xxiii.  (May-July,  1820)  of  the  Quarterly  Review  (John 
Murray),  an  able  winter  who  reported  on  German  conditions  after 
the  Napoleonic  wars  thus  delivers  himself : — "  These  very 
qualities  which  we  so  much  admire  are  liable  on  the  other  hand 


PREFACE  xi 

As  things  now  stand,  there  is  every  prospect 
of  China  going  smoothly  ahead  under  the  con- 
ciliatory presidency  of  Li  Yiian-hung,  so  long 
at  least  as  the  Prussian  viper  is  not  allowed  to 
find  another  nestling-place  in  her  bosom,  wherein 
to  brew  its  poison.  Sir  Robert  Hart,  Sir 
Richard  Dane,  M.  Piry,  Mr.  Kinder,  Dr.  Tim.othy 
Richard,  may  be  cited  as  but  a  few  instances  of 
Britons  and  Frenchmen  who  have  loyally  served 
with  great  and  permanent  results  the  exclusive 
interests  of  China  :  but  where  is  the  German, 
official  or  missionary,  who  has  ever  done  any 
thing  disinterested  ?  The  eagerness  to  under- 
take army  instruction,  to  supply  men-of-war 
and  guns,  the  monopoly  in  the  miscellaneous 
arms  trade,  the  greedy  hold  on  mines  and 
electric  engineering, — ^this  is  all  part  and  parcel 
of  the  ultimate  design  to  secure  military  control 
in  the  interests  of  the  Potsdam  octopus.  Japan's 
recent  attitudes  have  from  time  to  time  been 
considered  harsh  towards  China,  but  it  must  be 
remembered  that  she  also  is  now  fighting  for  her 
future  life,  and  she  is  as  fully  determined  that 
China  shall  never  again  have  a  German-com- 

to  be  perverted  in  the  most  naischievous  manner.  The  sincerity 
of  the  Germans  exposes  them  to  be  the  dupes  of  others  to  a 
dangerous  degree  ;  their  enthusiasm  is  apt  to  evaporate  in  absurd 
projects,  and  their  perseverance  to  degenerate  into  obstinacy.  .  .  . 
The  composure  and  secrecy  of  debate  on  grievances  suit  the 
genius  of  the  German  better  than  any  sudden  exertion  for  their 
removal.  His  imagination  dwells  with  delight  on  gloom  and 
mystery,  to  the  neglect  of  all  its  gayer  and  more  airy  fancies, 
whilst  the  milk  of  human  kindness  with  which  his  bosom  may 
be  stored  is  apt  to  turn  to  a  mixture  of  ferocity  and  sentiment 
extremely  disgusting.  Hence  this  country  has  at  all  times 
been  fertile  in  secret  and  peculiar  associations,  into  which  its 
natives  have  entered  with  an  enthusiasm  totally  unknown  in 
other  parts  of  the  world.  .  .  .  The  whole  system  of  the  Prussian 
Government,  although  carried  on  with  a  strict  attention  to  the 
principles  of  justice,  is  extremely  severe  in  its  mode  of  operation. 
Their  fiscal  regulations  are  in  many  respects  arbitrary  and  vexa- 
tious in  the  extreme,  especially  where  their  newly  acquired  pro- 
vinces are  concerned," 


xii  PREFACE 

manded  (for  that  is  what  German-trained  means) 
army  and  navy  as  she  is  resolved  that  Germany 
shall  never  again,  if  she  can  prevent  it,  set  foot 
in  Tsing-tao  or  any  other  vantage  point  on  the 
China  coast  :  it  has  recently  been  "  mooted  " 
(probably  indirectly,  as  a  feeler  from  Potsdam) 
that  Germany  would  give  back  Alsace  in  ex- 
change for  Indo-China ;  but  even  if  Japan 
would  tolerate  German  presence  anywhere  in 
the  China  seas,  France  is  far  too  generous  and 
noble-minded  a  nation  to  hand  over  the  effemin- 
ate and  defenceless  Annamese  she  has  christian- 
ised to  the  tender  mercies  of  a  pack  of  unnatural 
Karl  Peters  and  Puttkamers,  whose  cowardly 
brutalities  in  Africa  have  an  appropriate  sequel 
in  the  recent  Prussian  treatment  of  Belgians, 
Serbians,  Armenians,  and  French  occupes ;  not 
to  mention  the  craven  business  of  the  Lusitania 
and  the  sinking  of  numerous  hospital  ships. 
Japan,  true,  is  not  of  our  blood,  faith,  or  habit, 
but  her  record  for  a  generation  has  been  stedfast 
and  honourable,  and  she  is — despite  this  natural 
separation  in  sentiment- — a  far  more  noble  ally 
to  cultivate  than  any  wedge-pated  Hohenzollern 
of  Prussia  can  ever  be  again  ;  and,  indeed,  it  is 
doubtful  if  the  Po-Russians  or  "  next  to  the 
Russians  "  are  ethnologically  related  to  us  at  all ; 
they  seem  to  have  "adopted"  German  just  as 
the  Bulgarians  have  adopted  Slav. 

As  to  what  the  real  policy  of  Japan  towards 
China  is  to  be,  no  better  definition  of  it  could  be 
desired  than  that  set  forth  in  Viscount  Motono's 
speech  as  Foreign  Minister  delivered  in  the 
Imperial  Diet  on  23rd  January  last,  and  tele- 
graphed in  extenso  to  the  Times  of  27th  January. 
Certainly,  there  are  some  points  in  the  general 
settlement  of  disputes  on  which  China  and  Japan 
have  not  yet  arrived  at  complete  agreement ; 
probably   this    is   because    Japan   cannot    well 


PREFACE  xiii 

declare,  and  China  neither  feels  nor  understands, 
the  importance,  in  her  own  interests  as  well  as 
in  the  interests  of  peace  and  civilisation,  of 
extracting  the  viper's  fangs  once  for  all.  As 
to  American  suspicions  of  Japan,  these  may  be 
dismissed  at  once  if  the  United  States  will  only 
continue  to  approach  chocs  d' opinions  in  a  spirit 
of  reasonableness ;  and  indeed  some  of  our  own 
colonial  dominions  may  well  revise  their  attitude, 
if  only  in  recognition  of  Japan's  spontaneous 
assistance  in  scotching  the  serpent's  head. 

E.  H.  P. 

14  (fOBMKBLY  18),  QaMBIEB  TeBBAO£, 

Liverpool, 
8  March,  1917. 


CONTENTS 
CHAPTER   I 

GEOGRAPHY 

Accurate  notions  of  Chinese  geography — Eighteen  Provinces  and 
natural  Umits — ^Natural  movements  of  popiilation — Significant  dia- 
tinction  between  east  and  west  parts — Its  bearing  upon  British 
commerce — China  has  spread  outwards  :  we  regard  her  inwards — 
Original  movements  of  ancient  Chinese — Changes  of  Yellow  River 
stream — Early  Chinese  capitals — Supposed  Babylonian  origin — 
Attacks  by  nomads — Line  of  Chinese  further  advance — Dialect  areas 
— Non-Chinese  populations  in  China — How  distributed  in  northern 
and  southern  halves,  and  in  eastern  and  western  halves — Frontier 
tribes — Lolo  tribes  and  their  system  of  writing  ;  the  Mission  d'Ollone  ; 
— M.  Jacques  Bacot  and  the  Moso  tribes — ^The  Kachyns — Mrs. 
Bird- Bishop  on  some  Tibetan  tribes — Cave-dwellers  of  Sz  Ch'wan — 
Shans  in  Hainan ;  Rev.  Samuel  Clarke's  book — Spread  of  J  early 
Chinese  through  Yang-tsze  Valley — By  way  of  the  lakes  to  Canton — 
Rise  and  erratic  course  of  Yellow  River — The  loss  region,  and  von 
Richthofen's  theory — Navigability  of  Yellow  River  ;  Mr.  Rodney 
Gilbert's  travels — Corruption  in  repairing  its  banks — China's  real 
"  Sorrow  " — Chinese  engineers  and  the  dykes ;  recent  American 
plans — Source  of  the  Yang-tsze — Chinese  ideas  on  the  subject,  and 
their  reason — Limit  of  navigation — Rev.  S.  ChevaUer's  great  charts 
— The  Irrawaddy  sources — Skill  of  steamer  pilots — True  sources  of 
Upper  Yang-tsze — Once  a  region  competed  for  by  Siamese  and 
Tibetans — The  Canton  or  West  River — Its  trade  and  the  treaty  port 
Wu-chou — Chinese  have  advanced  along  lines  of  least  resistance — 
Its  commercial  significance — Salt  trade ;  Sir  R.  Dane's  reforms — 
Yang-tsze  Valley — Movmtain  ranges — Barrier  between  Tartars  and 
Chinese — Between  Tartars  and  Tibetans — Between  Yang-tsze  and 
West  River  valleys — Other  ranges — Dr.  Bretschneider's  excellent 
map  ;    modern  changes  in  city  designations       .  .    Pages  1-15 


CHAPTER    II 

HISTORY 

Insipidity  of  earliest  annals — Confucius'  "  Spring  and  Autumn " 
history — The  destruction  of  the  old  literature — M.  Chavannes  and 
Sz-ma  Ts'ien's  great  history — Interest  begins  with  foreign  relations 
and  nomad  wars — ^The  "  First  Emperor's  "  unification  of  China — 


xvi  CONTENTS 

The  monosyllabic  races  of  men — Roman  comparisons — Comparisons 
with  the  states  and  territories  of  America — First  news  of  Japan — 
The  Han  dynasty — The  Hiung-nu  (Huns  or  Turks) — Corea — The^old 
Canton  kingdom,_and  Wu  Ti's  conquest — The  old  Foochow  kingdom 
— Conquests  in  Turkestan — Buddhism  and  India — Burma  and 
Roman  ships  during  later  Han  dynasty — ^New  division  into  provinces 
— The  "Three  Empire"  period — Sundering  of  North  and  South 
interests — The  West  drops  into  obhvion — Ts'in  dynasty,  ideally 
"  Chinese " — Tartar  movements  and  displacement  of  dialects — 
Comparison  with  the  Latin  languages — "North  and  South" 
dynasty  period — Comparison  with  the  Empire  of  Charlemagne — 
Confusing  succession  of  ephemeral  dynasties — Unification  under 
the  Sui  dynasty — The  Franks — The  nomad  empire  of  the  Jeujen — 
The  Turks — Corean  compUcations — Annexation  of  Aimam — Japan's 
new  name  and  pretensions — Siam — Loochoo — Formosa — West  Turks 
— Tibetans — T'ang  dynasty  replaces  that  of  Sui — "  Men  of  T'ang  " 
— Rules  from  Persia  to  Corea — Turks  succeeded  by  Ouigours — Stone 
inscriptions  stiU  extant — Tribal  names  apphed  to  kingdoms — Arabs 
— Tibetan  inscriptions — Tibetan  and  Siamese  ambitions — Kashmir, 
Balti,  JNepaul,  and  India — South  Sea  peoples — The  Franks  again — 
Hiung-nu  and  Tinrk ;  repetition  of  history — Ephemeral  dynasties 
follow  that  of  T'ang — ^I'he  Sung  dynasty  :  its  character — The 
Kitans — The  Niichens — Old  China  and  the  Tientsin  trade  area — 
North  and  South  empires  once  more — Displacement  of  populations 
— The  Mongol  conquests  :  general  transformation — Kublai's  vast 
empire — The  Ming  dynasty  replaces  the  Mongols — Great  marine 
activity  in  the  South  Seas — Japanese  piracy  and  Loochoo — Growth 
of  the  Eleuth  power — ^Manila — The  Franks  coining  by  sea — Dutch 
and  English — Abandonment  of  the  Chinese  in  the  South  Seas  by 
the  Ming  and  Manchu  dynasties — Ming  influence  in  Asia  weak — 
Miserable  collapse  of  the  dynasty — How  the  Manchus  gained  head- 
way— Nurhachi's  wars  with  China — His  son  Abkhai — Wu  San-kwei 
and  the  Chinese  rebeUion — The  Manchus  seize  the  opportunity — 
Utihse  Mongol  troops — Conquest  of  China  completed — Conquest  of 
Western  MongoUa,  Tibet,  and  Turkestan — Chmax  of  Manchu  power 
— Submission  of  Nepaul — Annam,  Burma,  and  Siam — Japan  and 
Loochoo — Sulu — Manchus  no  aptitude  for  the  sea — Land  power 
compared  with  that  of  Kublai — ^Manchus  better  than  Mongol — The 
"Boxers" Paget  IQ~AI 


CHAPTER   III 

EARLY   TRADE   NOTIONS 

Interest  begins  with  relations  abroad — Chinese  contempt  for  traderft — 
Early  ideas  on  trade — Tribute  and  trade — Indifference  to  wealth — 
Growth  of  desire  for  gain — Early  currency — W^ars  and  scarcity — 
Rough  treatment  of  traders — Army  contractors — Salt  and  iron 
monopohsts — Arbitrary  sumptuary  laws — Trade  staples — Chines© 
standards  of  wealth — ^Diplomatic  trade — Fans  and  horse  trade — 
Tungusic  trade — Turkestan  and  Canton  trade — Syrian  trade  with 
the  Far  East — PUny  and  Ptolemy — Where  was  Kattigara  ? — Limited 
number  of  possible  ports — Romans  got  silk  and  iron  from  China — 
— Land  trade  vid  Parthia — ^Traders  by  sea  and  by  land  not  always 
identified — Chinese  agents  on  the  Persian  Gxilf — Chinese  priests  make 
the  round  tour  by  land  and  sea — Division  into  two  empires  accounts 


CONTENTS  xvii 

for  much  ignorance — Hindoo  and  Arab  colonies — Peaceful  inter- 
national relations — Roman  traders  at  Nanking — Probable  Irrawaddy 
and  Momein  route — Authors  repeat  the  same  stories — No  question 
of  duties  or  taxation — Arabs  and  Franks — Attempt  of  the  Emperor 
to  reach  the  Franks — Anachronisms  in  national  names — Active  Arab 
trade — Arab  and  Persian  attack  at  Canton — Turkish  land  trade — 
The  iron  trade  again — Tea — Nestorian  Stone  and  foreigners  at  Si-an 
Fu — Decline  of  Canton  monopoly — Rise  of  Hangchow  and  Ningpo — 
Marco  Polo's  Zaitun — Rare  book  on  trade  by  a  royal  Chinese — 
Chinese  trade  in  Indian  Ocean — "  Faifo  "  as  a  place  of  call — No 
trade  with  Tonquin — Sumatra  ports — Marco  Polo's  accounts  : 
amply  corroborated  by  Chinese — Colonel  Yule's  splendid  work — 
Eunuch  emissaries  from  China  to  the  Indian  Ocean  .  Pages  4:2-58 


CHAPTER    IV 

TRADE  ROUTES 

Two 'main  branches  of  the  great  road  to  the  West — Karakoram  Pass 
not  to  be  confused  with  Karakoram  city — Sir  Aurel  Stein — Sup- 
posed "  land-compass"  and  trade  road  to  the  South — Discovery  of 
West  River  by  Chinese — Hosie  and  Ainscough — Hu  Nan  route  to 
Canton — Parthian  and  Indian  road  measures — Trade  junction  at 
Kokand — Has  a  2,000  year  history — No  silk  went  by  sea  until  the 
Parthians  drove  it  thither — The  Burma  route — The  travels  of  the 
monk  Fah-hien — Cosmas  on  sixth-century  trade — Hiian-chwang'a 
travels  and  Sir  A.  Stein — The  Haiathala,  or  EphthaUtes — Tokhara 
and  the  Arabs — Chavannes'  translation  of  other  monks'  travels — 
Proof  that  trade  routes  existed — Mongols  kept  to  northerly  routes — 
Justin's  mission  to  the  Turks — Persia  and  the  silk  trade — Persian 
and  Arab  sea  trade — Persian  appeal  to  China — Arab  and  Persian 
struggles  round  Kokand — Arabs  work  their  way  to  the  Kokonor 
region — Arabs  and  Ouigours — Rodney  Gilbert — Arab  alliance  with 
Tartars  of  North  China — Arab  missions  by  sea  :  their  route — Nes- 
torians  and  Jews  at  this  period — Chinese  sea  trade;  Hirth  and 
Rockhill — Canfu  and  Zaitun — Arabia  and  African  coast — Persians 
and  Nestorians  confused — Parallel  confusion  later  on  between 
Franks  and  EngUsh — Conquests  of  Genghiz  Khan — Roads  followed 
by  his  messengers — And  by  Rubruquis,  Haiton's  brother,  etc. — 
First  Mongol  Mussulmans — Marco  Polo's  route — Burmese  routes 
again — Tonquin  railway — Where  was  Zaitvm  ? — Parallels  in  nomen- 
clature— Marco  Polo's  sea  route — Ibn  Batuta's  voyage  to  China — 
Nestorian  evidences — Takakusu's  discoveries — Chavannes,  PeUiot, 
Tachibana — Turkish  and  Ouigour  evidences — Carpini,  Rubruquis, 
Odoric,  Monte-Corvino — Marignoli,  Pascal,  and  other  Franks — 
Missions  to  and  from  Tamerlane--Goes  was  the  first  to  identify 
"China"  with  "Cathay" — Lieutenant  Wood — Ming  eunuchs'  sea 
routes — Early  name  for  Formosa — Land  routes  to  Nepaul  and 
Tibet — Manchu  discoveries — Kalmuck  wars,  and  consequent  Manchu 
conquests  —  Roads  to  and  from  Tibet — Khotan  road  —  Kokand 
and  the  Kashmir  trade — Abb6  Hue's  route — Nepaul  and  Lhassa 
roads — British  expedition  of  1904 — Sources  of  Irrawaddy — Chinese 
pilgrims  to  Mecca — Mongol,  Manchu,  and  Corean  roads — Spread  of 
railways  in  Mongolia — Armamese  roads  and  trade — French  railway 
to  Yiin  Nan — General  conclusions  and  principles — Progress :  is  it 
of  happy  omen  ? Pages  59-86 

2 


xviii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER    V 

ARRIVAL   OF   EUROPEANS 

St.  Francis  Xavier,  the  first  missionary,  dies  at  Sanciano — Founding  of 
Macao — Arrival  of  Ricci — "  Franks  "  at  last  identified — The  first 
Portuguese  traders — Mission  to  Peking  ends  in  disaster — Frank  guns, 
and  how  Macao  was  founded — Mendez  Pinto,  Ningpo,  and  Zaitun — 
Restrictions  on  trade — Rivalry  of  Dutch  and  Japanese — Portuguese 
settle  quietly  down — Macao's  degeneracy — Spaniards  and  Manila — 
Spaniards  and  Portuguese  one  realm — ^Massacre  of  Chinese  at  Manila 
— Koxinga  threatens  it — Chinese  in  Manila — The  Dutch — EarUest 
known  Chinese  settlements  in  Formosa — Japanese  rivalry — Koxinga 
drives  out  the  Dutch — ^Dutch  mission  to  Peking — Chinese  obtain 
Dutch  aid  against  pirates — Chinese  incorporate  Formosa  with  Fuh 
Kien — Dutch  tribute  to  China — Van  Braam's  mission — Dutch 
remain  quiet  till  1863 — CooUes  for  Sumatra — Dutch  policy — Chinese 
demands  after  "  Boxer  "  war — Ricci's  death  and  successors — The 
Manchus  and  Schaal — Verbiest  makes  cannon — Religious  dissen- 
sions— Queen  EUzabeth  and  China — EngUsh  attack  Canton,  and 
are  mistaken  for  Dutchmen — EngUsh  at  Amoy  before  1730,  and 
even  earher  at  Ningpo — EarUer  still  at  Canton — Opium  War  of 
1840-2 — History  of  opium — Chinese  also  to  blame — Reforms  since 
1906 — Friction  concerning  right  of  entry  into  Canton — A  Chinese 
junk  visits  England — Second  war — More  treaty  ports — Russia  takes 
advantage — Extension  of  missionary  rights — British  influence  fu-st 
— Japan  looms  to  the  front — Germany  pushes  forward — French 
influence  decUnes — Murder  of  Margary — Chefoo  Convention  and 
more  ports — Opium  Convention  —  Sikkim  Convention  —  B\irma 
Convention  —  Convention  of  1897  —  Iviang-hung  Convention  — 
Kowloon  and  Wei-hai  Wei  agreements — England  has  her  fair  share 
— Expedition  to  Tibet  in  1904 — The  Russians  —  Serve  Mongols 
as  body-guards  —  Pinto  meets  Russians — Russian  captives  at 
Peking — Incidents  of  Russian  political  intercovirse — Kalgan  trade 
convention — Hi  question — China's  weak  Manchurian  poUcy — 
Changed — Siberian  railway  and  Cassini  Convention — Manchuria 
now  Russian — New  "  all-Russian  "  railway — Manchviria  and  division 
of  "  rights  "  with  Japan — France  and  Mangu  Khan — Franks  and 
Fulin — French  "  ferocity  "  and  self-effacement — Treaty  of  Whampoa 
— ^Taiping  religious  rebellion — France  and  the  second  war — Cession 
of  Saigon — Explorations  in  Indo-China — Garnier  killed  by  Black 
Flags — Riviere's  similar  fate — Tonquin  rebellion — Hostilities  with 
China — Fournier  Treaty — Haiphong  trade — Inland  "  ports  " — 
Benefit  to  Hongkong — The  Yiin  Nan  railway  through  Tonquin — 
Sz-mao  opened  to  French  and  English  trade — French  occupy 
Kwang-chou  Wan — Germany  an  vmknown  quantity — Prussian 
treaty — Rising  pretensions  after  Franco-German  War — Frederick 
the  Great's  venture — Sides  with  the  strongest  after  the  Japanese 
War — Claims  reward  at  I^ao  Chou — Evil  example — Japan  ejects 
Germany — The  United  States — Surrender  of  Terranuova — Treaty 
of  Wang-hia — American  support  at  Taku — Treaty  of  Washington — 
Chinese  immigration — Honest  broker  attitude — Conscience  money 
given  back  to  China — Good  influence  in  Corea — Lack  of  force — 
The  Manila  white  elephant — Belgium — Portuguese  position  at 
Macao — Sr.  Branco's  activity — Japanese  aloofness — Perry's  treaty 
— Lord  Elgin  opens  Japan  to  British  trade — Japanese  revolution 
— ^Transformation — Treaty  of  1871  with  China — Formosa  dispute — 


CONTENTS  xix 

Loochoo — Japanese  rights  in  Corea — Chinese  intrigue — War  with 
China — Shimonoseki  Treaty — Opening  of  Soochow  and  Hangchow — 
The  "  Boxers"  give  Japan  her  opportiinity — She  becomes  a  first- 
class  Great  Power,  and  annexes  Corea — Denmark — Spain — Policy  at 
Manila — Cuba  coolie  question — Exchange  of  envoys — Loss  of  Pliilip- 
pines — Senor  Cologan's  services — Italy  and  the  Pope — "Cultured 
barbarians" — Treaty  of  1866 — Italy  and  Corea — Demands  in  the 
Cheh  Kiang  province  rejected — Austria — Baron  Czikann  a  "  brilliant 
second" — ^Swiss — Red  Cross  and  Postal  Convention — Peru — Brazil 
— Mexico  and  ill-treatment  of  Chinese — Congo  State — Sweden — 
Mr.  Carl  Bock — Turkey's  fiasco  in  the  Far  East — Serbia,  Rumania, 
Corean  "  Empire,"  Uruguay — List  of  Treaties,  etc.,  to  1906 

Pages  87-125 

CHAPTER   VI 

SIBERIA,    ETC. 

The  Tartars — Hung  equally  over  Europe  and  Asia — Russia  occupies 
their  place — ^Two  main  civihsations,  Roman  and  Chinese — Russia 
caps  the  pair — Zones  separating  both  Rome  and  China  from  Hyper- 
boreans— Hiung-nu  Empire,  Huns,  and  Avars — Tungusic  Empire 
replaces  Hiung-nu — JNever  included  Turkestan — Japanese  captives 
— Rule  North  China — Fail  as  a  nomad  power — Comparison  with 
Mongols — The  Jeujen  Empire — Not  Avars — The  Turks — EarUer, 
Later,  and  Western  Empires — The  Siberian  tribes — The  Ouigour 
Empire — Their  Manicheism  and  the  Chavannes-Pelliot  documents 
— Tungusic  power  reappears — Kitans  and  Niichens — The  old 
Puh-hai  kingdom  —  Kara- Kitans  —  Mongols  —  Kipchaks  —  Alans — 
Bulgars — Russians — Ancient  Wusun  and  mediaeval  EphthaUtes — 
— Who  are  the  Hungarians  ? — Novgorod  Republic — First  ideas  of 
Siberia — Kalmuck  or  Eleuth  power — Tamerlane  and  the  Kipchaks 
— Realm  of  Sibir  or  Issibur  :  Tobolsk — Ivan  the  Terrible  and  the 
Yugurs  of  Sibir — Chinese  and  Russians  in  accord  concerning  the 
Khan  of  "  Catch  'em  " — ^The  Strogonoff  and  the  Cossack  Yarmak — 
His  raids  and  discoveries — Contract  with  the  Kalmucks — Prudent 
PoUcy  of  the  Czars :  "  Heads  I  win,  tails  you  lose  " — Hiatus  in 
Kalmuck  history — Russian  missions  to  Altyn  Khan  on  the  Kem 
River — Alleged  Chinese  mission  to  Russia,  1619 — The  first  tea — 
Russian  advance  to  the  Amur — Little  danger  in  the  extreme  north — 
Attempt  to  explore  the  Sungari — Albazin  conflict — Treaty  of  Ner- 
chinsk— Kiachta  tea  trade — Aigun  treaty  secures  the  Amur  to 
Russia — Peking  treaty  secures  Ussuri  province  to  Russia — Tibet — 
Nepaul — Manipur — Burma — Siam — Japan — Corea    .  Pages  126-140 

CHAPTER   VII 

MODERN   TRADE 

Old  co-hong  system — East  India  Company — Life  at  Canton — Natvire  of 
Trade — Treaties  of  Nankin,  Tientsin,  etc. — Comparison  of  1880  trade 
with  the  trade  of  1899  and  1913— The  Tea  Trade— Good  position 
of  Great  Britain — Revenue  :  its  relation  to  trade — Cotton  goods — 
Opium  disappears — Woollens  and  metals — Russian  imports — 
Mackay  treaty  of  1902 — British  Textile  Commissioner — France  and 
silk — Revolution    of    ideas    caused  by    kerosene    and    flovir — New 


XX  CONTENTS 

cigarette  trade — Foreign  clothing — Aniline  dyes — Demand  for 
liixuries — Curious  sugar  finance — Exports — Soya  hiapida  and  bean- 
cake — Straw-braid — The  new  feather  and  albumen  trades — Hides, 
skins,  and  tobacco — Mats,  hemp,  oils,  spirits,  leather — Shipping — 
Foreign  population — Pakhoi  trade — Hoihow  trade — Lappa  and 
Kowloong — Lai'ge  silk  filature  trade  at  Canton — Li  Hung-chang'a 
intelligence — Transit-pass  Nemesis  at  Wu-chou — Rival  provincial 
capitals — Swatow  trade — Amoy  or  "  Zaitun  " — Disappearing  tea 
trade — Bad  government  in  Fiih  Kien — New  port  of  Santu  Ao — 
Foochow's  decline — Wenchow  trade — Ningpo  transformations — 
Railway  bickerings — Hangchow  trade  and  likin  understandings — 
Sununer  resort  of  Kvding — The  Poyang  Lake  and  the  railway — 
Shanghai  the  great  centre — River  trade — Chungking — Novel  condi- 
tions of  trade — Branch  at  Wan  Men — Ichang  and  its  transhipment 
trade — Sz  Ch'wan  railway — ^Tea  and  hides — ^Shashi,  a  failure — Rail- 
way to  Hu  Nan — Yochou  and  its  possibilities — Ch'ang-sha  and 
its  antimony — Hankow's  central  position — Tea  still  flourishes — 
Kewkiang  trade  fairly  flourishing — Wuhu  and  its  great  rice  trade — 
The  port  of  Nanking,  a  great  railway  centre — Chinkiang  and  its 
prospects — Great  increase  in  the  Newchwang  trade — Port  Arthur 
not  now  a  treaty  port — Ta-lien  Wan  as  a  railway  terminus — Tientsin  : 
enormous  development  of  its  trade  within  recent  years — Ranks 
almost  next  to  Shanghai — Great  wool  trade  with  Mongolia — Great 
area  served  by  Tientsin — Advantages  of  Ts'in-wang  Tao  as  an  ice- 
free  port,  coal  export — Kalgan,  Kia-yiih  Kwan,  and  the  Russian 
land  trade — Chef  oo  and  her  extended  trade — Kiao  Chou  as  a  limited 
"  free  port"  was  entirely  German — Wei-hai  Wei's  doubtful  status  as 
a  port — Corean  trade  now  Japanese  affair — Shanghai  the  great  centre 
— Caution  in  estimating  trade  totals — Tonquin  trade  and  railways — 
Mengtsz — Lungchow — Sz-mao — Kwang-chou  Wan — Soochowand  the 
Shanghai-Nanking  railway — Kongmun  and  Kumchuk — Other  mis- 
cellaneous quasi-ports,  on  various  frontiers,  making  up  the  Foreign 
Customs  total  of  forty- seven      ....        Pages  141-176 


CHAPTER   VIII 

THE    GOVERNMENT 

Central  Government  not  essential — Eighteen  Provinces — Old  nanaea 
still  used — Comparison  with  French  provinces — Theory  of  provincial 
government — Changed  relations  of  former  Viceroy  and  Governor — 
Memorials  to  the  Emperor  have  now  become  "  submission  "  to  the 
President  and  Boards — Division  of  labour  not  yet  quite  definite — 
Judicial  and  executive  governments — Reorganisation  of  each 
province  separately — Jehol  and  other  extra-mural  governments — 
New  relation  of  province  to  province — Each  a  state — MongoUa, 
Manchuria,  Turkestan,  Tibet — Disappearance  of  Banner  canton- 
ments— Modern  development  of  armies  and  Salt  Gabelle — The 
Board  and  provincial  revenues — New  taxes  under  the  Republic 
— System  of  budget  finance — Give-and-take  principles — China  one 
vast  democracy — Manchu  privileges  and  disabilities  aboUshed — 
In  spite  of  revolutions  and  failures,  China  and  Peking  have  both 
really  advanced — Caste  distinctions  now  abohshed — The  hien  is  the 
real  unit  of  government — Number  and  size  of  hien  districts — 
Largest  towns  may  append  to  a  small  hien  city — Personal  associa- 


CONTENTS  xxi 

tion  with  native  city — The  Men  Hke  the  Lord  Mayor — Embodiment 
of  "  the  State " — "  Father  and  Mother,"  or  factotum  for  the 
people — His  staff  of  secretaries — Not  so  black  as  he  is  painted — 
Judicial  and  executive  distinction  has  deprived  him  of  much  power — 
New  police  system  for  all  China — Full  description  of  the  "  good 
viceroys' "  efforts  and  of  Yiian  Shi-k'ai's  example  at  Tientsin — 
Means  of  obtaining  office — How  he  raises  money — Reforms  intro- 
duced after  "  Boxer  "  war — Ill-defined  duties  oi  a,  fu;  this  nebulous 
official  now  abolished  along  with  his  imaginary  "  city  " — The  ante- 
rooms of  a  Governor — The  pickings  of  a  former  prefect — Distri- 
bution of  patronage — K'ang  Yu-wei's  contemptuous  view  of  ronds 
de  cuir  in  1898 — Description  of  taotais'  functions — Now  styled 
taoyin — But  things  all  round  are  still  (1917)  in  a  state  of  flux — Other 
special,  salt,  and  grain  taotaia — Illustrative  table     .  Pages  177-190 


CHAPTER    IX 

POPULATION 

Ancient  population  extensive — History  of  the  Census — Unnecessary 
to  go  back  beyond  a.d.  600 — Relative  statistics  for  China  and 
Corea — Mouths  and  households — Dr.  Lionel  Giles  on  the  Census — 
Proof  indirect  from  army  statistics — Population  during  the  eleventh 
century — Freemen,  villeins,  and  serfs — North  and  South  extremes 
to  be  excluded — Population  of  Tartar-governed  China  in  twelfth 
century — Proportion  of  households  to  acres — Negative  estimates 
for  South  China — Mongol  populations — Before  and  after  Bayen's 
conquests — Manzi  and  Cathay — Marco  Polo's  estimates — Fearful 
ravages  of  war — Hon.  W.  W.  Rockhill  as  an  authority — Depopu- 
lation of  Sz  Ch'wan — During  1,500  years,  an  average  of  50,000,000 
souls — After  the  Tartars  had  all  been  ejected — Artificial  decrease 
of  population — Manchu  statistics — Steady  rise — Great  prosperity 
and  liberality — System  of  levying  land  tax — K'ang- hi' s  reforms — 
Free  heads — K'ien-lung's  new  way  of  looking  at  things — Enormous 
increase — Effects  of  Taiping  rebellion — Difficult  to  slay  millions — 
Chinese  official  statistics  the  sole  evidence — Opinions  alone  are 
worthless — Special  conditions  of  Sz  Ch'wan — Did  not  pay  to  be  a 
mandarin  there        ...  ...         Pages  191-204 


CHAPTER    X 

REVENUE 

Revenue  regarded  as  food  for  government — A  tithe  of  produce — Salt 
comes  next — Customs  more  modern — No  space  now  for  elaborate 
detail — Consider  the  Manchu  dynasty  alone — Revenue  250  years 
ago — Corruption  existed — Prosperity  of  the  eighteenth  century — 
One  tael  equal  there  to  one  pound  here — Balances,  surpluses,  and 
sale  of  titles — Peking  share  of  the  revenues — Nothing  done  until 
after  the  "  Boxer  "  war — Crushing  effect  of  "  Boxer  "  indemnities 
on  the  public — Expenditures — Waste  on  the  Yellow  River — Real 
revenue  and  expenditure  at  least  double  the  nominal — As  much 
once  more  for  "  squeezes" — And  once  more  again  for  local  rates — 
The  decrees  of  the  Board  of  Revenue — Specimen  of  an  old^appro- 


xxii  CONTENTS 

priation  "  bill  " — Great  military  expenditure — General  financial 
confusion — Very  little  improvement  under  the  Republic — Foreign 
loans  and  novelties — "  Boxer  "  affair  of  course  did  still  further  con- 
found matters — Defence  against  Russia  and  France — Contributions 
to  other  provinces — Specimen  of  annual  revenue-receipts  table — 
The  measure  of  the  nominal  appropriations — Underlings  at  head- 
quarters— Expense  of  remitting — Curious  contrasts — Specimens  of 
Republican  budgets       ......  Pages  205-221 


CHAPTER   XI 

THE    SALT   GABELLE 

Illustrative  of  natural  geography — Earliest  excise  on  salt — Description 
of  the  Two  Kwang  salt  system — Annual  yield  of  revenue — Corners 
of  other  provinces  supplied — Irregularities — Swatow  and  part  of 
Fuh  Kien — Fuh  Eaen  salt  system — The  supply  of  salt  to  Formosa — 
Enormous  clandestine  trade  up  the  Wenchow  River — Old  adminis- 
trative divisions  for  Chdh  Kiang  salt — Sir  Richard  Dane's  reforms — 
Geographical  reasons  affecting  An  Hwei — The  island  salt  supply — 
Price  of  salt  now  increased  throughout  the  empire — Large  revenue 
receipts — Clever  engineering  in  the  Hwai  salt  region — North  and 
South  varieties — Compromise  with  the  Sz  Ch'wan  industry — 
Description  of  the  system — Field  for  native  investments — Serves 
the  Yang-tsze  Valley — Sz  Ch'wan  salt  and  hydrogen  wells — Fuel 
supplied  by  nature — Three  Yang-tsze  viceroys  used  to  manage  the 
salt  revenues — Sir  R.  Dane  and  Republican  changes — Personal 
experiences — Salt  serves  as  small  change — Sudden  changes  depre- 
cated— One  exit  only  from  Sz  Ch'wan — Area  served — Yiin  Nan  and 
Kwei  Chou  arrangements — Tibet's  position — Supplies  Nepaul — 
Black  salt  wells  in  Kublai  Khan's  time — Wu  San- kwei  and  the 
Panthay  Mussulmans  exploit  the  salt — Muang-u  salt — Manchurian 
salt — Changes  since  "  Boxer  "  war — Mongolian  salt — Goes  east  to 
Peking  and  west'  to  near  Russian  frontier — Possibly  the  salt 
industry  of  2,000  years  ago — Revenues  very  small — Old  China — 
Geographical  significance  once  more — Chinese  a  Yellow  River 
people — China's  Sorrow — The  oldest  salt  industry  Shan  Tung — ^Two 
branches  of  the  salt  trade — Used  to  be  one  with  the  Tientsin  salt 
syndicate — History  of  first  Chinese  salt  administration — Salt  and 
iron  monopolies — ^The  Tientsin  or  "  Long-reed  "  salt  industry — Mer- 
chants are  heavily  "  squeezed  "  by  the  Government — The  recent 
farce  of  Government  "  faith  bonds  " — Divided  condition  of  Ho  Nan 
in  her  salt  supplies — Shan  Si  or  Ho-timg  salt  system — Its  history 
in  Tartar  hands — Achmac,  the  villainous  minister  of  Kublai  Khan — 
Commissary  lives  at  P'u-chou — Sir  R.  Hart's  land-tax  scheme  fails 
— Chang  Kien  proposes'*all-round  increase  in  price  of  salt 

Pages  222-244 


CHAPTER    XII 

LIKIN 

Origin  of  likin — A  special  levy  on  tea  and  salt  to  support  troops 
operating  against  Taipings — Extensions  of  the  idea — ^Tax  becomes 
an  imperial  one — Shanghai  likin  and  foreigners — Our  own  weakness 
causes  the  trouble — Chinese  recognise  its  unconstitutionality — Ho 


CONTENTS  xxiii 

Nan  likin — Evidently  likin  was  a  voluntary  "  benevolence  "  at  first 
— Taku  and  Tientsin  levies  for  "  Sam  Collinson's  "  troops — Chefoo 
liJcin — Charges  levied  on  native  opium — Mr.  Wade  and  Mr.  Lay — 
Native  opium  in  Yiin  Nan — Likin  in  Manehiiria — Li  Han-chang 
collects  for  Liu  K'un-yih's  troops — Chungking  likin — Likin  along 
the  Cheh  Kiang  trading  routes — Kwang  Si  accounts — Kiang  Nan 
charges — Definition  made  precise — Our  responsibility  is  double — 
The  foreign  howl  of  anguish — Sir  Brooke  Robertson's  deliberate 
policy — Blocks  the  way  until  his  death — Sir  Brooke  condoned — 
Peking  rapacity — Effect  of  the  Foreign  Customs — Effect  of  Taiping 
rebellion  upon  the  land-tax — A  big  combine — Compromise  neces- 
sary— All  share  the  plunder — The  Republic  no  better — A  huge 
Tammany  Hall — National  conscience — Proposal  in  1902  to  abolish 
likin  in  exchange  for  increase  in  import  dues — Comparison  of 
Chinese  and  French  exactions  on  Yiin  Nan  trade — Under  the  Re- 
public the  semi-independent  miUtary  governors  practically  are  law 
unto  themselves  at  present — Sir  Robert  Hart's  salt  likin  arrange- 
ments of  1898 — The  estimated  likin  revenue  in  1911  and  1913 — 
The  redoubtable  General  Chang  Hiin  and  his  army  feeding  on  the 
country — Opium  likin  a  thing  of  the  past — Effect  of  likin  on  the 
railways — British  and  American  protests — China's  lack  of  public 
disinterestedness — General  considerations — Increase  of  duties — What 
is  wanted      ........  Pages  245-255 


CHAPTER    XIII 

THE    ARMY 

Manchu  military  organisation — ^Nvichen  and  Eatan  banner  organisation 
the  soul  of  it — Manchu,  Mongol,  and  Chinese  banners — Bought  out 
by  the  President  of  the  RepubUc — Civil  and  military  "  domiciles  " — 
Strength  of  the  banner  army — "  Stiffeners "  at  the  conquest — 
Provincial  banner  garrisons — Jealousy  caused — Drain  on  the 
provinces — Contrast  with  India — Degeneracy — The  Green  Flag, 
or  Chinese  Army — Provincial  and  brigadier  generals — Changes  of 
titles  under  the  Republic — Service  in  one's  own  province — Relative 
rank — Corruption  and  peculation — Distinction  between  "  soldiers  " 
and  "  braves " — All  a  question  of  honesty — Efforts  at  reform 
previous  to  the  Japanese  War — Effects  of  the  Japanese  War — 
Difficulties  in  the  way  of  reform — German  occupation  of  Kiao  Chou 
— The  young  Emperor's  reforms — The  Empress-Dowager  is  egged 
on  to  interfere — Endless  circle  of  savings  and  waste — Yiian  Shi-k'ai's 
effective  army — ^The  "  Boxer  "  fiasco — Recent  reforms — Viceroy 
Chang  denounces  the  Green  Flag  and  drills  foreign-trained  troops — 
The  new  military  spirit  turns  out  a  Frankenstein  monster — Central 
control  over  armies  and  railways  wrecks  the  dynasty — Provincial 
generals  and  pronunciamentos — New  armies  of  1905  and  1911,  with 
new  nomenclature — Chinese  soldiers  not  entirely  Gilbertian,  but 
have  a  bottom  or  fundament  of  good  qualities         Pages  256-270 


CHAPTER    XIV 

PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

Rev.  A.  Smith's  excellent  book  upon  this  subject — Personal  opinion 
upon  Chinese  character — Observations  upon  Manchua — Marriages 


xxlv  CONTENTS 

with  Chinese — Manchu  officials  and  princes — "Mean  whites" 
among  the  scions — Drinking  habits — Comparison  of  Manchu  with 
Chinese  bravery — Bravery  generally — Manchus  and  Chinese — 
Different  groups  of  Chinese — Distinctions — Take  the  common 
Chinese  view  of  ovu-selves — Republican  sumptuary  changes — We 
take  the  same  general  but  inaccurate  view  of  the  Chinaman — 
Question  of  truthfulness — Distinctions  in  lying — Not  much  worse 
than  we  are  ourselves — Question  of  thieving — Ordinary  care  and 
common  honesty — Practical  honesty  of  thieves — Cleanliness  and 
dirt — More  definitions  and  distinctions — Great  fidelity — Respect 
for  justice — Politeness — Effect  of  the  Republic — Definitions  and 
comparisons — Cruelty  and  callousness,  and  their  explanation — The 
Viceroy  Liu  disapproves  of  it — A  true  bill — Commercial  rectitude — 
Recent  degeneration — Government  credit — Libidinous  nature — 
Marriage  and  concubinage — Puritanical  virtue — Chinese  women — 
Position  improved  under  the  Republic — Local  reasons — Infanticide 
— Virility — Treatment  of  children — ^Inferior  position  of  girls — Recent 
improvement — Hold-of¥  attitude  of  parents — Mothers  are  petty 
tjTants — Patria  potestas — Children  and  pigs — ^Temperance  in  eating 
and  drinking — ^Theory  of  gluttony,  vice,  opium,  and  drink — Dis- 
tillery laws — Aphrodisiacs — Industry  a  ruling  virtue — Artificial 
light,  and  effect  of  latitude — Sagacity  in  money  making — Official 
smugglers — ^The  handy  man — A  cold  time  for  barbers — ^What  the 
Chinaman  can  not  do — Time  will  show  effect  of  change 

Pages  271-292 

CHAPTER   XV 

RELIGION   AND    REBELLION 

Meaning  of  "  religion  " — Effect  of  it  at  home — Much  the  same  in 
China — Like  to  appear  whole  in  the  next  world — Care  not  for 
doctrine — Over-zeal  of  missionaries — Early  or  natural  religion — 
Confucianism — Improvement  in  articulate  ideas — Republic  first 
abandons  and  then  harks  back  to  the  old  philosopher — Revolution 
of  ideas  in  Asia  just  before  our  era — Good  effects  of  Buddhism — 
Position  of  women — Comparison  with  Romish  Church — Toleration 
of  the  Chinese  mind — Mussulmans — Early  Christianity  in  China — 
Regulars  and  their  disputes — Zeal  and  doctrine  too  much,  charity 
too  little — Female  foot- squeezing — Missionaries  and  their  views — 
Opium — Hearty  British  co-operation — Drink — Slavery — Concubin- 
age— Words  not  to  be  taken  too  harshly — Marriage — Popular  con- 
ventions— Village  feasts — Church  rates — Narrow  sectarianism — 
Religious  mind  of  the  Chinese — Ideas  of  a  soul — Filial  piety — The 
basis  of  Chinese  Law — Mussulmans  tamed  down — Rodney  Gilbert's 
Turki  experiences — Wisdom  of  Russian  Church — Secret  societies — 
White  Lily  sect — Cause  of  two  dynasties'  collapse — "  Boxer  "  re- 
volts— ^Taiping  rebellion — Later  "  Boxer  "  consequences 

Pages  293-306 

CHAPTER   XVI 

LAW 

Law  reform  in  1905 — Foreign  codes  consulted — British  law  just  aa 
cruel  once — China  has  a  consecutive  law  history — Patria  poteataa 
and  filial  piety — Austin  and  Maine  on  law — Chinese  law  ia  purely 


CONTENTS  XXV 

criminal — State  and  family — ^War  and  crime — Family  law  no  affair 
of  state — Civil  law  almost  as  little — Contract  and  custom — Ancient 
myths  and  traditions — History  dates  from  841  B.C. — Early  Chinese 
codes — Comparison  with  Roman  Twelve  Tables — Roman  contrasts 
— Chinese  Solons  and  Dracos — Gradual  steps  towards  uniformity 
and  mercy — Maxims — The  First  Emperor's  Procrustes  bed — 
Basis  of  successive  dynastic  laws — ^The  Marcus  Aurelius  of  China — 
Son's  responsibility  for  father — Simplification  and  mildness  always 
advance  a  step — List  of  punishments — Tartar  rule  in  North  China — 
Comparison  with  the  Germanic  tribes — Introduction  of  foreign 
religions — 1,400  years  of  clumsy  classification — Appeals  and  con- 
science— Instances  of  crown  cases  reserved — The  ratio  decidendi — 
The  Emperor  and  the  Pope  on  Infallibility  or  Supra  legea  aumua — 
History  of  law  continued  backwards  from  the  Manchus — Ancient 
obiter  dicta  still  in  force — Fierce  treason  laws — The  Emperor  K'ang-hi 
— Jurisprudence  falls  off  with  advent  of  Europeans — Sir  George 
Staunton  and  the  Chinese  code — A  Chinese  Doctors'  Commons — The 
Ming  dynasty  and  back  again  to  the  Mongols  and  other  Tartars — 
The  T'ang  dynasty  and  the  Han  dynasty  are  the  two  leading  houses 
for  jurisprudence — Legal  reform  in  the  twentieth  centtiry  after 
"  Boxer  "  wars — Executive,  legislative,  and  judicial  functions  first 
separated — Independence  of  judges — Parliament — Wu  T'ing-fang, 
Foreign  Secretary  and  Codifier  of  Law — Shen  Kia-pen,  native  law 
specialist — Practical  justice  still  leaves  much  to  be  desired 

Pages  307-342 


CHAPTER   XVII 

LANGUAGE   AND   LITERATURE 

Bone  inscriptions,  Shang  dynasty  1770-1190  B.C.,  and  most  ancient 
forms  of  writing — Literary  revolution  of  827  B.C. — Script  originally 
regarded  as  "  names "  only — Bronze  specimen  in  London  dating 
several  centuries  later — Connected  thoughts  begin — Laborious 
writing  art — Fan  origin  of  "  books  " — Confucius'  history — 1,000 
"names"  increase  to  3,000  "ideas" — Perishable  materials — Feudal 
China  forcibly  united — Writing  simplified — Destruction  of  conten- 
tious literature  and  cranks — Revival  of  literature,  simplification 
carried  further — Sounds,  rhymes,  and  tones  distinguished  for  9,000 
words — Writing  materials — Sir  Aurel  Stein's  discoveries — No  foreign 
ideas  ever  affected  Chinese  script — Absurd  to  connect  with  Babylon 
— All  men  the  same — Presumption  that  they  all  used  their  organs 
the  same  way — "History"  is  simply  "Events" — Reason  for 
perishable  materials — Caesar  and  Sz-ma  Ts'ien  of  equal  literary 
merit — Chinese  script  good  for  any  language. 

All  languages  equally  easy — Chinese  differences  only  suggest  diffi- 
culty— No  Chinese  talk  exactly  alike — Learners  must  stick  to  one 
dialect  till  mastered — Irish  and  Scotch  accents  as  illustrations — 
Monosyllabic  and  tonic  languages — Digraphs  and  diphthongs — All 
languages  "  piled  up  "  in  practically  the  same  resulting  way — 
No  Chinese  Malaprops — No  "  grammar  "  in  Chinese — ^Who  knows 
what  "  parsing  "  means  ? — A  rose  by  any  other  name — Universal 
Chinese  ignorance  diminishing — Women's  day  coming — Different 
sorts  of  style — No  snobbery  in  Chinese  conversation — A  man's  a 
man  for  a'  that — Dialects  and  brogues — Forms  of  "  mandarin  " — 
Talk  takes  a  back  seat — Litera  scripta  manet — 400  syllables  for  40,000 


XX  vi  CONTENTS 

characters — 75  per  cent,  of  them  useless — Limit  of  "  learning  " — 
A  European  may  be  as  sound  a  "  harmless  drudge  "  as  the  most 
learned  Chinaman — Do  not  stuff  your  memory — Japanese  get  along 
with  fifty  syllables — "  Thickenings "  in  Welsh  and  Japanese — 
Super-refinement  of  tones — Ancient  Chinese  provable  from  Corean, 
Japanese,  and  Annamese — Cantonese  the  oldest  and  most  highly 
developed — Tartar  corruption  of  Chinese,  and  Teutono-GaUic  cor- 
ruption of  Latin — The  French  have,  like  the  Pekingese,  lost  their 
"  entering  tone  " — Influence  of  Indian  priests  on  Chinese  language 
— A  "  tip  "  for  would-be  students — Pekingese  and  Cantonese  alone 
repay  study  except  for  missionaries  and  "locals" — Question  of 
romanising  Chinese — Welsh  once  more         .  ,       Pages  343-364 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

THE    RISE    OF   THE    CHINESE    REPUBLIC 

Rush  of  literature  on  the  Revolution — The  "  Awakening  of  China  " — 
Li  Hung-chang  and  Chinese  struggles  against  foreign  aggression — 
Corean,  Burman,  and  Tibetan  questions — Count  Cassini  and  the 
Siberian  railway — Admiral  Lang  and  the  Chinese  fleet — Japanese 
war  and  loss  of  Formosa — Li  Hung-chang's  diplomatic  pilgrimage — 
Germany  out  in  the  cold — The  Kiao  Chou  intrigue  and  violence — 
General  scramble  in  consequence — The  Emperor's  fiasco — "  Boxer  " 
desperation — The  old  Dowager  a  genuine  reformer — Yuan  Shi- 
k'ai's  good  work  at  Peking  and  Tientsin — Preparations  for  a  Con- 
stitution— Efforts  at  reform  by  the  Yangtsze  viceroys — Russo- 
Japanese  war  gives  breathing  time  to  China — Great  Britain  and 
Tibet — Fair  dealing  with  both  China  and  Russia  as  finale — Death 
of  Dowager  and  Emperor — The  Dalai  Lama  at  Peking — The  Regent 
and  the  new  Dowager — Palace  intrigue  and  dismissal  of  Yiian  Shi- 
k'ai — Provincial  councils  and  provincial  armies  begin  to  feel  their 
helms — Struggle  for  central  or  for  provincial  control — Likin  bungling 
and  the  moribund  Mackay  treaty  of  1902 — Sympathy  for  Boy 
Emperor  changes  to  despair  as  to  obtaining  constitutional  rights — 
National  Assembly  of  1910 — Revolution  of  1911 — Sun  Yat-sen 
hurries  back  to  China — Manchu  appeal  to  Yiian  Shi-k'ai,  who  takes 
char'ge  at  Peking — Anarchy  in  the  provinces — Emperor  announces 
Magna  Charta  to  his  ancestors'  spirits — Manchu  princes  removed 
from  high  office — Regent  resigns  seals  of  office — "  Pigtails  "  sacrificed 
— Solar-lunar  calendar  mooted — Dowager  leaves  ParUament  to  decide 
— Abdication  of  12th  February — Old  Dowager's  brother  secures  a 
plank  from  the  wreck — Yiian  Shi-k'ai  as  Plenipo. — Republic  created 
not  self-made — Sun  Yat-sen  President;  Li  Yiian-hung  Vice- 
president — New  era  introduced — Yiian  dishes  Sun,  and  is  formally 
elected  President — Looting  by  Yiian's  troops  at  Peking  and  Paoting 
—  New  Constitution  of  fifty-six  Articles  —  Its  defects  —  United 
League  and  Popular  Party  intrigues — T'ang  Shao-i  as  Premier — 
Hwang  Hingand  Sun  Yat-sen  placated  with  high  but  harmless  office 
— Li  Yiian-hung  Chief  of  the  Staff — The  Five  Races — Intermarriage 
and  squeezed  feet — Advisory  Council  in  heu  of  Parliament — Petty 
revolts  and  intrigue — Northerners  get  the  pull  over  Southerners 
— Foreign  loans — National  flag — The  opium  curse — Difficulties 
with  Tibet  and  Outer  Mongolia,  Turkestan,  etc. — T'ang  Shao-i 
bolts     and     escapes     assassination — Dictatorship     bruited — Party 


CONTENTS  xxvii 

wrangling — Hwang  Hing  and  Sun  Yat-sen  venture  to  Peking — 
Death  of  new  Dowager — Parliament  to  meet — Yiian  suspected 
re  assassination  of  Sung  Kiao-j6n — Hwang  Hing  joins  in  revolt 
against  Yiian's  pretensions — Chang  Hiin  and  his  "  pigtailed " 
army  to  the  rescue — Yiian's  "Pride's  Purge"  and  coup  d'etat — 
Chang  Hiin  propitiated  with  a  Military  Governorship ;  declares 
independence,  but  is  bought  out  and  given  a  high-sounding 
sinecure — General  confidence  in  Yiian — K'ang  Yu-wei  placated — 
Vice-president  Li  Yiian-hung  coaxed  to  Peking  and  is  "  snuffed  out  " 
for  two  years — Parliament  gives  way  to  Advisory  Council — Useful 
work  in  China  during  1914 — Hopes  for  China — How  if  Yiian  die  ? — 
Yiian  worships  Heaven  in  state — European  war  once  more  gives 
China  breathing  space — Projects  for  new  Constitution — Japan 
ejects  Germany — The  Press  orJy  half  alive  to  Japan's  future  danger 
— The  Peace  Association  and  uncanny  rumours — Discrediting  of 
republican  principles — Professor  Goodnow's  officious  interference — 
Dr.  Morrison  and  M.  Ariga — Bogus  petitions — Suspicious  attitude 
of  Yiian's  scapegrace  son — Liang  K'i-ch'ao  "  smells  a  rat  " — German 
intrigues — Yiian  Shi-k'ai  seems  hypnotised — Advisory  Council  recom- 
mends monarchy — More  bogus  petitions  in  support — The  idea  of  a 
constitutional  monarchy  not  unreasonable — Suggestion  of  popular 
vote — Warning  by  Japan,  Britain,  and  Russia  to  "  go  slow  " — 
France  and  Italy  follow  suit — General  foreign  and  native  confidence 
in  Yiian,  but  not  as  Emperor,  only  as  constitutional  ruler — Atti- 
tude of  America,  Germany,  and  Austria — Adulatory  addresses  and 
thimble-rigging — Yiian  offered  the  imperial  crown — Rats  leave  the 
labouring  ship — Absurd  showering  of  princely  and  noble  titles  as 
bribes— Effort  to  secure  the  "  Four  Intimates " — Eunuchs  and 
pretty  girls  at  an  end  for  palace  uses — Duke  Confucius  collapses — 
New  era  of  Great  Constitution — Ominous  revolt  in  YiinNan — Japan 
quickly  shows  her  hand  against  German  intrigue — Spread  of  revolt 
to  the  other  provinces — Yiian  has  to  "  climb  down  " — ^The  fire- 
eating  ex- viceroy  Shum — Sun  Yat-sen,  T'angShao-i,  Liang  K'i-ch'ao, 
Wu  T'ing-fang  all  hostile — Risk  of  South  China  faUing  asunder — 
Yiian's  mad  moratorium — Hurried  summoning  of  ParUament — 
Yiian  falls  sick  and  dies  of  uraemia  and  mortification — Li  Yiian- 
hung  succeeds — Twan  K'i-jwei  Premier — Deaths  of  Hwang  Hing 
and  Ts'ai  Ao — Hopes  for  China  through  general  conciliation 

Pages  365-38G 


Glossary Pagrea  387-394 

Index Pagre*  395-419 


LIST  OF  MAPS,   ETC. 

Ricci  AND  Paul  Zi  (costume  or  Mma  Dynasty),  from 

AN  OLD  PICTXTBE  PUBLISHED  BY  THE  CHINESE  JeSUIT 

Pere  Hoang        .....  Frontispiece 

PAOINQ  PAGE 

1.  Rough  sketch  of  Chinese  Empire  showing  propor- 

tion OF  Eighteen  Provinces        ....         1 

2.  Rough  sketch-map  to  illustrate  the  size  of  each 

province     ........         5 

3.  Rough    sketch-map   illustrating   the    spread    of 

Chinese  from  (1)  Yellow  River  Valleys  ;    (2) 
Head  Waters  of  Yang-tsze  ;    (3)  Yueh  Valleys       14 

4.  Rough  sketch-map  to  illustrate  the  ethnology 

OF  China  AND  the  Chinese  expansion  .         .         .16 

6.  Sketch-map  to  illustrate  convergence  of  all  boads 
UPON  THE  Pamir  Region  ;  also  to  show  certain 
main  ROUTES  FROM  the  West  ....       48 

6.  Rough  map  to  illustrate  the  main  directions  taken 

BY  the  early  land  AND  SEA  TRADE  WITH  ChINA      .  50 

7.  Sketch-map  showing  most  of  the  names  mentioned 

IN  Chinese  navigation         .          .          .         .         .58 

8.  Map  showing  the  sea  routes  known  to  the  Chinese 

OR  BY  ENVOYS  TO  ChINA  .....  62 

9.  Sketch-map  to  illustrate  Chinese  land  and  sea 

APPROACHES  TO  InDIA  ;    ALSO  CERTAIN  MAIN  ROUTES  .  64 

10.  Map  to  show  Chinese  knowledge  of  Africa    .  .       76 

11.  Map  to  illustrate  the  utmost  extent  of  Chinese 

rule  and  the  trade  routes  into  China  from  all 
SIDES  .........        84 

12.  Map  to  illustrate  the  Eastern  Island  trade  sphere      92 

xxix 


XXX  LIST  OF  MAPS,   ETC. 

FAOINa  FAQB 

13.  Map  IIXUSTRATINQ  SiBEBIA         .  .  .  .  .138 

14.  Map  showing  the  position  of  all  ports  and  marts 

OPEN  TO   foreign   TRADE  .  .  .  .  .174 

15.  Map  illustrating  population  in  1894  and  revenue 

IN  1898         .  .  .'        .  .  .  .  .204 

16.  Rough  MAP  TO  illustrate  chapter  ON  Salt       .         .     244 

17.  General  MAP  or  China  (after  Bretsohneider)         At  end 


CHINA 

CHAPTER    I 

GEOGRAPHY 

If  we  desire  to  obtain  accurate  notions  touching 
the  poHtical  and  commercial  capacities  of  China, 
we  must  first  endeavour  to  reaUse  what  her 
territory  is  Hke.  It  has  been  the  native  practice 
in  modern  times  to  style  "  China  Proper  "  by 
the  collective  name  "  Eighteen  Provinces."  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  since  frontier  questions  with 
European  Powers  became  acute,  the  "  East 
Three  Provinces  "  (Manchuria)  and  the  "  New 
Territory  "  of  Turkestan  have  been  so  reorgan- 
ised that  there  are  now  practically  twenty-two 
directly  governed  provinces ;  and  Formosa 
formed  in  a  modified  degree  yet  another  new 
one,  until,  some  twenty  years  ago,  the  Japanese 
insisted  upon  its  cession.  It  will  be  more  con- 
venient to  ignore  these  recent  changes,  and  to 
consider  first  the  compact  and  thickly  populated 
territory  lying  between  the  various  deserts  or 
steppes  and  the  sea — in  other  words,  the  "  Eigh- 
teen Provinces,"  which  are,  or  were  until 
recently,  surrounded  to  the  north,  west,  and 
south  by  tributary  or  independent  states,  and 
to  the  east  by  the  Pacific  Ocean.  The  natural 
boundaries  of  China  Proper,  as  thus  limited, 
have    always    been    much    the    same— that    is, 

1 


2  GEOGRAPHY  [chap,  i 

deserts  or  steppes  beyond  mountain  chains  have 
prevented  the  rapid  expansion  of  cultivators  in 
any  direction  except  along  the  valleys  of  rivers 
which  run  eastwards  into  the  sea.  If  the  poli- 
tical boundaries  have  in  our  times,  as  often 
before,  been  pushed  into  the  desert  or  upon  the 
plateau,  that  does  not  seriously  affect  the  one 
salient  feature  of  the  vast  Chinese  Dominion, 
which  is  that,  out  of  an  irregular  triangle  cover- 
ing an  area  of  5,000,000  square  miles  and  sup- 
porting a  total  population  of  400,000,000  souls, 
one  corner  embracing  barely  one-third  of  the 
total  surface  consists  of  regulation  provinces, 
ruled  under  one  uniform  system,  and  containing 
nine-tenths  of  the  population  ;  whilst  the  rest  of 
the  triangle,  so  far  as  it  has  not,  either  de  Jacto 
or  de  jure,  seceded  from  Chinese  control,  con- 
sists of  poorly  watered  desert  or  plateau,  thinly 
peopled  by  races  forming  majorities  over  the 
Chinese  settlers.  It  was  only  when,  as  in  the 
case  of  Manchuria  and  the  New  Territory  of 
Turkestan,  the  Chinese  element  became  in  some 
way  predominant  or  equal,  that  political 
measures  were  taken  to  assimilate  an  "  outer  " 
portion. 

The  Eighteen  Provinces  thus  form  a  roughly 
circular  mass  occupying  nearly  one-third  of  the 
dominion's  surface.  But,  if  we  bisect  this  mass 
from  north  to  south,  we  shall  find  that  the 
western  half  has  a  general  tendency  to  be  moun- 
tainous, whilst  the  eastern  half  has  a  corres- 
ponding tendency  to  be  flat.  We  shall  find, 
moreover,  that  out  of  a  total  population  of  be- 
tween 300,000,000  and  400,000,000,  the  eastern 
half  contains  three-quarters,  whilst  the  moun- 
tainous half  only  contains  one-quarter.  As  we 
proceed  with  our  inquiry,  we  shall  discover, 
besides,  that,  taken  as  a  whole,  the  western  half 
is  barely  self-supporting,  and  contributes  even  in 


B.C.  2000-A.D.  1600]     COMMERCIAL   ASPECT  3 

theory  very  little  to  the  Central  Government  at 
Peking,  whilst  the  eastern  half  can  support 
itself,  feed  the  Central  Government,  and  also 
assist  the  impecunious  west,  always  supposing 
that  war  and  revolution  do  not  queer  the  normal 
pitch.  The  wealthy  province  of  Sz  Ch'wan 
rather  interferes  with  the  truthful  harmony  of 
this  sweeping  arrangement ;  but  none  the  less 
the  broad  facts  are  as  stated,  for  it  is  only  the 
eastern  half  of  Sz  Ch'wan  that  pays  a  surplus  ; 
in  fact  of  very  recent  years  the  western  half  has 
been  constituted  a  separate  government  for 
many  exceptional  purposes. 

We  have  now  got  under  our  eyes  a  material 
upon  which  to  work,  and  it  is  thus  evident  from 
a  commercial  point  of  view  that  the  interests 
of  Great  Britain  lie  almost  entirely  upon  the 
coasts,  upon  the  embouchures  of  three  or  four 
great  rivers,  upon  the  valleys  of  those  rivers  and 
their  tributaries,  and  upon  the  head  waters  of 
the  Yang-tsze  in  Sz  Ch'wan.  In  other  words, 
geographical  considerations  indicate  the  eastern 
half  of  China  Proper  as  the  most  accessible  and 
the  most  valuable  field  for  our  commercial 
development ;  and,  if  this  region  be  kept  open 
to  us,  we  can,  without  great  violence  to  our 
feelings,  relegate  to  a  second  place  Manchuria, 
Tibet,  and  Yiin  Nan,  in  the  first  of  which  the 
legitimate  competition  of  Japan  and  Russia  is 
likely  to  be  most  keen,  whilst  India  and  China 
have  joint  interests  in  the  tea  trade  of  Tibet, 
and  France  through  Tonquin  has  as  much  to  do 
with  Yiin  Nan  as  we  have  through  Burma. 

Familiar  though  the  names  of  Chinese  pro- 
vinces are  to  those  who  have  passed  a  lifetime  in 
the  Far  East,  I  am  aware  that  the  general  reader 
is  apt  to  get  confused  if  too  many  strange  names 
be  thrust  upon  his  attention  at  once.  I  there- 
fore give  here  a  simple  map  with  a  list  of  the 
3 


4  GEOGRAPHY  [chap,  i 

Eighteen   Provinces   in   order  to  illustrate   my 
remarks  (see  next  page). 

When  we  Europeans  approach  China,  which 
is  usually  done  by  sea,  we  are  unconsciously  im- 
pressed with  the  notion  that,  the  farther  inland 
we  go,  the  more  we  leave  "  civilisation  "  behind 
us.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that,  from 
the  native  point  of  view,  the  coasts  are  the  ends 
of  the  earth,  and  the  places  where  least  of  the 
true  Celestial  spirit  is  to  be  found.  All  the  solid 
part  of  Chinese  tradition  and  history  seems  to 
show  that  the  original  inhabitants  of  the  Central 
Kingdom  (who  have  never  possessed  any  national 
or  ethnological  designation  in  the  sense  of 
"German,"  "Turk,"  "Russian,"  etc.)  were 
first  heard  of  as  Jiioving  from  the  north  and 
west  down  the  valley  of  the  Hwang  Ho  (Yellow 
River),  the  lower  half  or  mouth  of  which  has 
shifted  from  time  to  time,  som.etimes  leaving  the 
mountain  mass  known  as  the  Shan  Tung  Pro- 
montory to  the  south,  and  sometimes  to  the 
north.  The  old  capitals  of  the  kings  were  all  in 
the  valleys  of  the  Yellow  River  or  in  those  of  its 
tributaries,  such  as  the  River  Wei  in  Shen  Si. 
Hence  all  the  legends  of  even  the  mythical 
emperors  are  centred  between  Si-an  Fu  and 
Peking,  near  which  place  (Tientsin)  the  Yellow 
River  once  entered  the  sea.  In  fact,  the  trade 
area  now  belonging  to  the  single  port  of  Tientsin 
nearly  covers  the  whole  of  semi-historical  China. 
Even  so  far  north  as  Kalgan  there  are  ancient 
remains  of  what  appear  to  be  signal  towers  or 
tombs  dating  as  far  back  as  B.C.  200.  On  this 
undoubted  fact — that  some  of  the  earliest  known 
Chinese  advanced  from  the  north  and  north-west 
—many  ingenious  theories  have  been  pro- 
pounded, connecting  them  with  Babylonia,  the 
Accadians,  Persians,  Hindoos,  and  what  not. 
By  assuming  errors  in  ancient  Chinese  records 


12/ 


Jehol 


H/H 


VNG 


NGANf 


Am 


CHE 


N6  JK^IA^ 


1^8 


ruH 

lEN^ 


r 


r 


A.D.  1650-1900]      LIST    OF    PROVINCES 

THE    EIGHTEEN    PROVINCES,  Etc. 


Name  of 
Province. 


An  Hwei 

Cheh  Kiang 

ChihLi 

Fuh  Kien     . 
Ho  Nan 
Hu  Nan 

Hu  PSh 
Kan  Suh 

Kiang  Si 
Kiang  Su 

Kwang  Si     . 
Kwang  Tung 


Translated  Meaning, 


Peace-Glory 

Cheh  River 

Direct  Rule 

Happy-Establish 
River  South 
Lake  South 

Lake  North 
Sweet-Sedate 

River  West 
River  (and)  Su 

Broad  West 
Broad  East 


Archaic  Name 

(as  separate 

State). 


Kwei  Chou  .    Noble  Tract 


Shan  Si        .    Mountain  West 
Shan  Tung   .    Mountain  East 


Shen  Si 

Sz  Ch'wan    . 

Yiin  Nan 


Sheng  King 


Kih-lin 

Heh-lung 
Kiang 


Shen  West 
Four  Streams 
Cloud  South 


Prosperous 
Capital 

Happy  Forest 


Black  Dragon 
River 


Wan 
Yueh 
Yen 


Min       I 
Yii 
Ch'u      I 

Ngoh    { 

(no  general 
name) 
Kan 

Wu        I 
I  Yiieh 

K'ien 


Tsin 
Ts'i 


Ts'in 
Shuh 
Tien 


Remarks. 


Liao 

(none) 
(none) 


Part  of  oldEaang  Nan;  i.e. 
An(king)  andHwei(chou) 

The  Kiang  (Yang-tsze) 
once  had  a  mouth  here 

Peking  never  under  Vice- 
roy 

Established  (I  think) 
about  A.D.  700 

South  of  the  (Hwang)  Ho 

South  of  the  (Timg-t'ing) 
Lake 

North  of  the  (Tung-t'ing) 
Lake 

Kan  (chou)  and  Suh  (chou) 
(prefectures) 

West  (reach  of  the)  Kiang 

The  Yang-tsze  about  Soo- 
chow 

The  west  and  east  parts  of 
Kwang  Nan,  or  the  old 
Annam  seat  of  power 

Perhaps  a  euphonic  form 
of  the  old  "  Kwei  State," 
or  Devil  Country 

Chih  Li  used  once  to  fall 
within  the  parts  east  of 
the  (Hang)  Mountain 
Range 

West  of  Shen  (an  old 
state  practically  mean- 
ing " the  Pass ") 

Once  called  "  Three 
Streams  " 

South  of  the  Sz  Ch'wan 
Mists,  or  the  Misty 
Range  (Yiin  Ling) 


Also  called  Feng-t'ien 

The  ancient  M  a  n  c  h  u 
cradle  :  possibly  from  the 
old  Chinese-Corean  Kilin 
Province 

Also  called  Tsitsihar 


Sin  Kiang     .    New  Domain 


(none) 


Kashgaria-Dzungaria 


T'ai  Wan 


Terrace  Bay 


(no  general 
name) 


Formosa  (now  Japanese) 


It  wiU  be  noticed  that  there  are  two  Yiieh  and  two  Kiang.     The 
Chinese  characters  alone  can  express  the  distinctions  to  the  eye. 


6  GEOGRAPHY  [chap,  i 

here  and  there,  by  rigidly  adhering  to  our  own 
Scriptural  texts,  and  by  indulging  our  imagina- 
tion a  little,  we  might  perhaps  even  trace  the 
first  Chinaman  back  to  the  Tower  of  Babel,  or, 
for  the  matter  of  that,  to  the  North  Pole.  I  can 
only  state  the  moderate  impressions  which  the 
perusal  of  original  Chinese  history  has  left  upon 
me.  A  capable  and  settled  political  race  is  first 
heard  of  in  possession  of  lands  along  the  Yellow 
River :  it  is  occupied  in  fighting  for  its  existence 
with  the  horse-riding  nomads  to  the  north,  who 
raid  the  stores  of  wealth  accumulated  upon  culti- 
vated lands  by  industrious  workmen,  and  who 
disappear,  when  pursued,  into  their  trackless 
deserts.  It  is  continually  being  reinforced  by 
other  bodies  of  its  own  kind  coming  from  the 
north-west. 

The  next  great  historical  advance  seems  to  be 
south-west  into  modern  Sz  Ch'wan  ("  Four 
Streams  "),  and  then  through  the  two  great  lake 
regions  down  south  by  way  of  the  navigable 
Kan  river  of  Kiang  Si,  and  the  Yiian  and  Siang 
rivers  of  Hu  Nan  into  the  region  of  Canton, 
which,  as  will  be  seen  from  our  sketch  map, 
belongs  to  an  entirely  different  catchment  area. 
But  the  valley  of  the  Yang-tsze,  as  a  whole,  and 
the  provinces  south  of  it  and  at  its  mouth,  do 
not  appear  to  have  become  properly  assimilated, 
either  politically  or  industrially,  before  the  com- 
mencement of  our  Western  era.  Moreover,  the 
portions  of  all  the  seaboard  provinces  lying  very 
near  to  the  coasts  seem  to  have  been  out  of  hand 
up  to  a  very  recent  date  — say  500  years  ago  ; 
so  that  we  must  picture  in  our  minds  the  Chinese 
race  spreading  like  a  fan  from  the  southern  bend 
of  the  Yellow  River  towards  the  Upper  Yang-tsze 
and  the  coasts,  its  political  force  becoming 
weaker  and  weaker  as  it  approaches  those  coasts 
and    the    Indo-Tibetan    highlands.     Hence    we 


A.D.  1650-1900]  DISTRIBUTION  OF  POPULATION  7 

find  that,  whereas  throughout  the  whole  of 
interior  China  one  tongue  is  now  spoken — subject 
to  more  or  less  serious  variations  in  dialect, 
never  of  an  incongruous  or  impossible  kind — in 
the  coast  provinces  south  of  the  Yellow  River, 
and  in  those  alone,  are  spoken  dialects  so  excep- 
tional as  to  rise  almost  to  the  distinction  of 
separate  languages  ;  but  only  so  in  the  sense 
that  Swedish,  Danish,  German,  and  Dutch  are 
languages  foreign  to  one  another ;  that  is, 
though  words  differ  in  sound,  they  are  easily 
traceable  to  one  indefinable  or  elastic  original. 
Thus  we  Europeans,  approaching  China  from  the 
sea,  are  at  once  confronted  with  a  practical 
difficulty  which  is  not  nearly  as  much  felt  by 
the  Chinese  themselves  approaching  the  extremi- 
ties from  the  heart,  and  one  of  the  chief  obstacles 
to  our  success  is  this  confusion  of  tongues,  which 
unduly  localises  every  European's  efforts. 

I  have  above  divided  the  Eighteen  Provinces 
into  the  eastern  and  western  halves.  In  a  very 
rough  way  the  eastern  half  may  be  stated  to  be 
rich,  -and  densely  populated  by  pure  Chinese  ; 
the  western  half  to  be  poor,  and  thinly  populated 
by  mixed  races,  often  exceeding  the  Chinese  in 
numbers.  In  the  northern  portion  of  the  eastern 
half  there  is  probably  not  now  left  a  single 
individual  of  aboriginal  race,  though  up  to  about 
a  thousand  years  ago  certain  unidentified  "  bar- 
barian "  tribes  were  still  mentioned  along  the 
southern  (Hwai  River)  bed  of  the  Hwang  Ho. 
In  the  southern  portion  of  the  eastern  half  there 
are  still  a  few  independent  or  semi-independent 
tribes,  known  as  Yao  or  Miao,  occupying  the 
border  mountains  which  separate  Kwang  Tung 
on  the  south  from  the  Hu  Nan  and  Kiang  Si  on 
the  north.  But  these  tribes  give  very  little 
trouble,  and  possess  no  political  importance  of 
any  kind.     In  the  mountains  of  Fuh  Kien  I  have 


8  GEOGRAPHY  [chap,  i 

myself  come  across  remnants  of  strange  aborigi- 
nal tribes,  and  even  in  Cheh  Kiang  there  are  a 
few.  Still,  in  a  general  way,  and  ignoring  trifles, 
it  may  be  truthfully  stated  that  the  wealthy, 
populous,  eastern  half  of  China  Proper  contains 
none  but  pure  Chinese,  or  aborigines  so  closely 
assimilated  as  to  be  indistinguishable  from 
Chinese  ;  and  in  all  cases  these  aborigines  are  of 
the  monosyllabic  and  tonic  tongues  so  character- 
istic of  China. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  western  half  of  the 
Eighteen  Provinces  is  largely  foreign.  The 
miserably  poor  province  of  Kwang  Si  contains 
many  obscure  tribes,  usually  grouped  under  the 
main  heads  of  Shan  (Siamese)  or  Miao  (no 
ethnological  clue  as  yet).  Not  only  so,  but  there 
are  still  many  aboriginal  officials,  responsible, 
however,  not  to  the  Central  Government  direct, 
but  to  local  Chinese  prefects  or  magistrates.  In 
the  adjoining  province  of  Kwei  Chou  there  are 
also  a  good  many  Miao  tribes,  som.e  groups  of 
which  I  saw  myself  when  there  ;  they  are  in 
appearance  not  unlike  the  Kachyns  of  the 
Burmo-Chinese  frontier,  who  are  known  to  be  of 
Tibeto-Burman  origin.  In  Yihi  Nan  there  are 
a  great  many  tribes  of  the  Shan  race,  not  only 
within  the  border,  but  also  in  those  recently 
delimitated  districts  which  now  belong  politi- 
cally to  Burma  (Great  Britain)  or  Tonquin 
(France).  Among  the  mountains  of  north-east 
Yiin  Nan  and  south  Sz  Ch'wan,  the  powerful 
confederation  of  so-called  Lolo  tribes  still  main- 
tains its  independence.  A  French  missionary 
named  Paul  Vial,  who  had  lived  amongst  them, 
twenty  years  ago  published  a  very  valuable 
memoir  upon  the  subject.  The  Lolos  possess  a 
written  system  of  their  own,  a  specimen  of  v/hich 
(discovered  by  Mr.  E.  C.  Babcr  in  1880)  I  have 
before  me,  together  with  a  sheet  from  Perc  Vial 


A.D.  1880-1912]  NON-CHINESE  TRIBES  IN  CHINA  9 

throwing  light  upon  its  nature.  Since  then  the 
Mission  D'Ollone  of  1906-1909  has  pubHshed 
two  very  interesting  works  about  the  Lolos  and 
their  language,  the  literary  expression  of  which, 
however,  is  of  an  unsatisfying  nature.  From 
time  to  time  very  serious  collisions  take  place 
between  the  Lolos  and  the  Chinese  armies,  the 
result  always  being  a  patched-up  peace,  leaving 
the  uncivilised  men  very  much  to  their  own 
devices  as  before.  The  Kachyn  tribes  ^  seem  to 
form  a  link  between  the  homes  of  the  Shans  and 
Tibetans.  They  extend  along  the  Upper  Irra- 
waddy  and  the  western  frontiers  of  Yiin  Nbu. 
M.  Jacques  Bacot  in  1912  published  an  equally 
illuminating  book  upon  the  writing  system  of 
the  Moso  tribes  nearer  to  Tibet  than  the  Lolos. 
The  Kamti  tribes  of  the  Upper  Irrawaddy  (the 
Mali-kha  branch)  are,  however,  pure  Shans,  and 
their  language  possesses  a  strong  affinity  with 
Laotian  and  modern  Siamese.  On  the  western 
frontiers  of  Sz  Ch'wan  we  have  numerous  and 
sometimes  very  formidable  independent  Tibetan 
tribes,  such  as  do  not  fall  within  the  hierarchical 
administration  of  Tibet  proper.  Mrs.  Bird- 
Bishop  has  given  us  interesting  particulars  about 
some  of  these,  but  she  appears  to  have  some 
reasons  (not  stated)  for  suggesting  that  they 
are  not  Tibetan  as  usually  supposed.  The  cave- 
dwellers  of  eastern  Sz  Ch'wan  have  mostly  dis- 
appeared, but  their  abandoned  dwellings  in  the 
mountain-sides  may  still  be  seen  anywhere  to  the 
west  of  Chungking  ;  some  of  these  tribes  still 
exist  to  the  extreme  south-east,  near  the  Kwei 
Chou  frontier.  In  the  island  of  Hainan  there 
are  at  least  two  groups  of  "  savages,"  or  non- 
Chinese,  one  of  which  I  personally  ascertained 
to  be  of  Shan  kinship.     Despite  the  utter  con- 

^  Cf,  my  detailed  account  of  these  tribes.     Fortnightly  Review, 
1897. 


10  GEOGRAPHY  [chap,  i 

fusion  which  reigns  both  in  the  Chinese  and  the 
European  mind  touching  the  south-west  bar- 
barians, taken  as  a  whole,  I  am  disposed  to  think 
that  in  all  probability  most  of  them  will  be  found 
to  range  themselves  either  under  the  Shan  or 
the  Tibetan  head.  In  this  connection  the  Rev. 
Samuel  Clarke  published  a  very  informing  work 
in  1911,  showing  that  none  of  the  other  south- 
west tribes  ever  had  any  writing  system,  not- 
withstanding their  intelligence  and  their  quick- 
ness in  picking  up  our  romanising  novelties. 

We  have  seen  how  the  advance  of  Chinese 
civilisation  has  been  along  the  Yellow  River  and 
then  up  its  great  tributary,  the  Wei,  to  the  head 
waters  or  tributaries  on  the  left  bank  of  the 
Yang-tsze.  A  combined  movement  from  those 
head  waters  and  from  the  lakes  of  the  Hwai  (old 
Yellow  River  mouth)  system  seems  then  to  have 
gradually  taken  in  the  whole  Yang-tsze  Valley, 
including  the  old  debouchure  at  Hangchow.  A 
glance  at  the  map  will  show  how  their  next 
obvious  move  was  across  the  Poyang  and  Tung- 
t'ing  lakes  to  Canton.  Let  us  examine  these 
rivers  in  order.  The  Yellow  River,  the  dis- 
covery of  whose  exact  source  engaged  the  earnest 
attention  both  of  the  ablest  Mongol  and  the 
most  ambitious  Manchu  Emperors,  rises  among 
a  group  of  small  lakes  called  Odon-tala  (lat. 
35°  N.,  long.  96"^  E.).  It  then  runs  through 
Charing  Nor  eastwards  for  300  miles,  turns 
sharply  back  to  the  north-west,  bisects  Kan  Suh 
north-east,  and  takes  a  tremendous  northerly 
sweep  round  part  of  the  desert,  inclosing  within 
its  bend  the  often-contested  Ordos  region.  It 
then  turns  due  south,  and  forms  the  dividing 
line  between  Shen  Si  and  Shan  Si.  The  pass  of 
T'ung  Kwan,  at  its  southern  bend,  was  for  many 
centuries  the  key  to  the  possession  of  empire, 
in  the  days  when  the  political  centre  of  gravity 


B.C.  2000-1916]    YELLOW  RIVER  VAGARIES        11 

always  lay  within  a  hundred  miles'  radius  of 
that  point.     The  water  is  clear  up  to  its  entry 
into  the  loss  region — in  fact,  the  Mongols  style 
it  the  Black  River  ;    but  so  soon  as  it  reaches 
Shen  Si  it  begins  to  take  a  yellowish  tinge  from 
the  fine  "  loose  "  sandy  soil  which  covers  a  vast 
area  on  both  sides  of  its  valley,  and  the  presence 
of  which,  according  to  a  theory  of  the  distin- 
guished   geologist    Von    Richthofen,    is    to    be 
accounted  for   by   untold  generations   of  dust 
blown  over  from  the  deserts.     Quite  recently  the 
American  traveller  (and  humorist)  Mr.  Rodney 
Gilbert  has  given  us  vivid  pictures  of  Mussulman 
life  in  these  desert  regions.     This  part  of  the 
Yellow  River  is  extensively  used  by  salt  boats, 
and  by  junks  conveying  iron  and  other  metals 
from  the  Shan  Si  mines  ;    but  from  the  moment 
it  emerges  into  the  lowlands  (between  Hwai-k'ing 
and  Ho-nan  cities),  it  becomes  erratic,   and  is 
practically  useless  for  navigation.     Every  year  or 
two  it  bursts  its  banks,  and  temporarily  destroys 
some  tract   or   other ;     every   few   centuries   it 
changes  its  course   altogether.     Its   old  bed  is 
often  useless,  whilst  the  new  one  has  to  be  raised 
or  buoyed  up  between  dykes,   sometimes  high 
above  the   surrounding  plain.     Directly   or  in- 
directly,   millions   of  taels   have   been   annually 
wasted  in  patching  it  up  and  in  feeding  a  corrupt 
army  of  peculating  official  harpies.     In  a  word, 
the  Yellow  River  amply  justifies  its  traditional 
sobriquet  of  "  China's  Sorrow,"  and  it  would  be 
a  great  blessing  for  China  if  proper  scientific 
European    specialists    would    take    the    matter 
seriously  in  hand  ;    in  fact,  at  this  moment,  an 
American  syndicate  is  in  treaty  with  the  Repub- 
lic for  a  thorough-going  reform  of  the  whole  Hwai 
River,   Grand  Canal,  and  string  of  lakes  tangle. 
Meanwhile  the  Chinese  engineers  who  manipu- 
late the  complicated  system  of  lakes  and  levels 


12  GEOGRAPHY  [citap.  i 

forming  a  network  about  the  Grand  Canal  and 
Hung-tseh  Marsh,  are  almost  as  expert  in  an 
empirical  sense  as  the  wary  Dutchmen  who  keep 
an  ever- watchful  eye  upon  the  Zuider  Zee  and 
the  intricate  system  of  Netherlands  dykes.  The 
supply  of  water  and  the  sacrifice  of  land  are 
carefully  measured  and  jealously  watched  with 
a  view  to  keeping  open  the  Canal  and  preventing 
disasters  of  great  magnitude. 

The  Yang-tsze  River  is  considered  by  the 
Chinese  to  take  its  rise  in  the  north-west  corner 
of  Sz  Ch'wan,  not  far  from  the  point  where  the 
Yellow  River,  as  above  described,  suddenly 
turns  north-Vv^est  between  mountains  20,000  feet 
high.  The  reason  for  this  view  of  the  matter  is 
that  the  rich  plain  of  Ch'eng-tu  was  colonised 
centuries  before  anything  of  a  definite  nature 
was  known  of  Yiin  Nan,  which  remained  practi- 
cally a  sealed  book  up  to  the  time  of  Kublai 
Khan,  650  years  ago  ;  and  even  now  the  Chinese 
have  comparatively  little  acquaintance  with 
what  we  call  the  Upper  Yang-tsze  above  P'ing- 
shan,  which  is  the  limit  of  navigation  for  all  but 
very  small  boats.  After  this,  up  stream  for 
some  distance,  it  is  to  nearly  all  intents  a  Lolo 
river,  and  for  several  hundred  miles  forms  the 
boundary  between  Sz  Ch'wan  and  Yiin  Nan. 
When  we  speak  of  the  Yang-tsze  valley  in  a  com- 
mercial sense,  we  really,  without  intending  it, 
mean  the  river  taken  in  its  Chinese  sense  just 
described,  and  this  river  with  its  feeders  drains 
half  the  area,  containing  one-half  the  population 
of  the  Eighteen  Provinces.^ 

I  need  not  say  any  more  about  the  rest  of  the 
stream,  the  Middle  and  Lower  Yang-tsze,  which 

^  The  Rev.  S.  Chevalier,  s.J.,  in  1901  published  a  magnificent 
atlas,  with  detailed  plates,  showing  the  exact  configuration  of 
every  fraction  of  the  Great  River's  course  between  P'ing-shan 
and  Ich'ang. 


A.D.  900]    THE  BURMA- YUN-NAN  FRONTIER   13 

is  already  so  well  known  from  Ich'ang  down- 
wards. European  pilots  know  every  bank,  and 
follow  the  changes  of  channel  day  by  day  :  it  is 
marvellous  with  what  skill  they  will  bring  a  huge 
steamer  down  at  full  speed  on  the  blackest  of 
nights.  Touching  what  European  geographers 
consider  the  source  of  the  Yang-tsze< — ^that  is 
the  longest  water-course  above  Sz  Ch'wan' — its 
head  waters  are  not  very  far  from  those  of  the 
Yellow  River.  The  latest  maps  of  the  Upper 
Yang-tsze  show  three  small  streams  in  the  lofty 
valleys  between  the  K'unlun  and  Tangla  ranges 
(lat.  34°  N.,  long.  90°  E.).  These  three  combine 
to  form  the  River  Drichu,  which  flows  south-east 
through  the  country  of  the  Darge  tribes,  past 
Bathang,  into  Yiin  Nan.  A  thousand  years  ago 
the  possession  of  all  this  western  Yiin  Nan  region 
was  being  contested  by  the  Shan  empire  on  the 
one  side,  and  the  Tibetans  on  the  other.  At 
present  it  has  no  commercial,  and  very  little 
political  significance,  and  is  one  of  the  least 
known  parts  of  the  world  ;  the  Indian  Govern- 
ment, however,  keeps  its  eyes  wide  open  on 
behalf  of  Burma*,  and  has  recently  established 
a  new  commissionership  in  the  Putao  region 
(west  of  Yiin  Nan),  which  effectively  secures  to 
us  command  of  all  the  Irrawaddy  sources. 

There  yet  remains  a  third  great  water  system, 
that  of  the  Si  Kiang,  or  West  River  of  the  Two 
Kwang  provinces.  All  its  head  waters  are  in 
eastern  Yiin  Nan,  and  for  some  distance  it  forms 
the  boundary  between  Kwei  Chou  and  Kwang 
Si.  The  trade  of  all  its  branches  and  tributaries 
concentrates  at  the  new  treaty  port  of  Wu-chou 
on  the  borders  of  Kwang  Tung  and  Kwang  Si. 

In  touching  upon  the  above  drainage  systems, 
I  wish  first  of  all  to  illustrate  how  naturally  the 
invading  Chinese  have  in  their  expansion  in- 
variably followed  the  lines  of  least  resistance  ; 


14  GEOGRAPHY  [chap,  i 

and,  secondly,  to  prepare  the  reader  for  certain 
important  results  affecting  the  course  of  modern 
trade,  and  more  especially  the  enormous  native 
salt  trade,  which  is  organised  strictly  in  accord- 
ance with  the  facilities  offered  by  rival  water 
routes.  Handled  in  a  masterly  fashion  by  Sir 
Richard  Dane,  the  Salt  Gabelle  has  now  become 
one  of  China's  best  financial  assets.  I  think 
it  specially  useful  to  insert  here  a  sketch  map 
of  the  Yang-tsze  Valley,  so  as  to  bring  vividly 
before  the  eye  some  points  upon  which  I  have 
touched.  What  little  there  is  to  be  said  about 
the  geography  of  Tibet,  Mongolia,  and  Manchuria 
will  be  introduced  under  those  or  other  heads. 
It  only  remains  now  to  mention  one  or  two  of 
those  historical  mountain  ranges  of  the  Eighteen 
Provinces  which  play  a  part  in  determining 
political  or  commercial  divisions. 

The  great  natural  barrier  between  the  Chinese 
and  the  Tartars  has  always  been,  and  to  a  great 
extent  still  is,  the  range  known  as  Yin  Shan,  or 
"  Sombre  Mountains,"  which  may  be  roughly 
stated  to  form  a  backing  to  the  Great  Wall  all 
the  way  from  the  northern  Ordos  bend  of  the 
Yellow  River  to  Corea.  Then  there  are  the 
Nan  Shan,  or  "  South  Mountains,"  of  Kan  Suh, 
which  divide  off  the  Turko-Tartar  from  the 
Tibetan  groups  :  it  has  always  been  the  policy  of 
China  to  keep  these  two  groups  apart.  Another 
important  range  separates  the  valley  of  the  Wei 
(tributary  of  the  Yellow  River)  from  that  of  the 
Han  (tributary  of  the  Yang-tsze)  :  it  is  called 
by  various  names  in  the  maps,  but  I  have  never 
been  able  to  satisfy  myself  what  the  proper 
Chinese  name  is.  Then  there  is  the  Mei  Ling, 
or  "  Plum  Range,"  which  separates  the  river 
systems  of  the  Yang-tsze  and  the  Chu  Kiang 
(Pearl  or  West  River).  There  are  many  other 
notable  mountain  ranges  in  China,  mostly  off- 


r 


A.D.  1900-1911]     REPUBLICAN  CHANGES  15 

shoots  of  the  great  Central  Asian  Range  usually- 
known  as  the  K'unlun.  Several  of  these  ranges 
I  have  crossed  myself ;  but  it  would  be  of  barren 
interest  to  enumerate  them  here,  or  to  enter 
into  wearisome  details  as  to  what  this  spur  does, 
or  how  that  system  re-appears.  I  confine  my- 
self therefore  to  naming  the  few  chains  which, 
in  my  own  experience  of  history  and  travel, 
appear  to  play  a  prominent  practical  part.  The 
best  way  for  those  readers  who  really  take  a 
close  interest  in  the  geographical  features  of  the 
Eighteen  Provinces  to  gratify  their  special 
propensities  would  be  to  study  the  map  which 
I  have  always  found  the  simplest  and  clearest 
for  general  purposes — that  of  Dr.  Bretschneider 
(revised  edition,  1900).  It  is  wonderfully  ac- 
curate, and  sets  out  all  topographical  peculiari- 
ties in  excellent  proportion.  Although  the  ju, 
chou,  and  fing  cities  are  no  longer,  under  the 
Republic,  distinguished  from  the  hien,  it  will 
be  some  time  before  even  the  Chinese  themselves 
lose  sight  of  the  old  ''  ranks  "  of  walled  cities  ; 
and  in  any  case  these  distinctions  of  political 
size  and  quality  must  be  kept  in  mind  when  we 
consult  books  on  China  published  before  the 
general  hotch-pot  rearrangements  fitfully  made 
since  1911. 


CHAPTER    II 

HISTORY 

The  human  interest  in  Chinese  history  in  the 
case  of  non-speciaUsts  begins  with  foreign  rela- 
tions. Just  as  early  Roman  history  loses  itself 
in  an  ill-defined  mist  of  Etruscans,  Volscians, 
Sabines,  or  other  petty  tribes,  and  makes  the 
ordinary  reader,  who  honestly  desires  to  start 
from  the  beginning,  anxious  to  get  on  to  the 
livelier  subjects  of  the  Carthaginian  and  Gallic 
wars  ;  so  do  students  of  Chinese,  wlio  have  em- 
barked on  the  voyage  of  discovery,  dread  the 
wearisome  duty  of  wading  through  the  insipid 
stories  of  early  Chinese  tim^es  :  how  the  great 
Yii  cleft  the  mountains  and  guided  the  waters  ; 
how  the  noble  king  A,  of  a  new  dynasty,  got 
rid  of  the  tyrant  B  of  an  old  one,  when  he  was 
feasting  on  mountains  of  flesh  and  rivers  of  wine, 
regardless  of  his  people's  poverty,  surrounded  by 
beautiful,  if  mischievous,  houris.  I  have  been 
through  it  all  thrice  in  the  original,  and  will  there- 
fore be  more  merciful  to  those  who  do  me  the 
honour  to  read  me  than  I  have  been  even  to 
myself :  in  making  these  irreverent  remarks  I 
must  add  that  the  true  dated  Chinese  history 
only  begins  in  842  B.C.,  at  which  date  a  great 
revolution  took  place,  not  only  in  politics,  but 
also  in  letters.  I  will  not  inflict  any  earlier  or 
traditional  "  history  "  upon  my  readers- — not 
so  much  as  a  summary^ — I  sweep  it  totally  away. 

16 


■  C/i/NESE  EX  PANS/ ON 


__I2I   _ 


^^^        \  J 


N0T\I;<N0WN 


121 


/iOU6H  SKETCH  MAP  roilLUSTMTE  THE  ETHNOLOSr  OF CH/NA  AND  THE  CN/NESE  EXPANSION 


B.C.  800-220]  INSIPIDITY  OF  EARLY  HISTORY  17 

Even  Confucius'  history,  which  treats  of  events 
well  subsequent  to  the  Triumvirate  of  841  B.C., 
and  describes  comprehensible  human  beings  who 
do  not  irritate  us  with  their  excessive  rectitude 
and  virtue,  is  inexpressibly  flat  and  insipid.  He 
may  be  said  to  be  the  very  first  to  deal  at  all  with 
concrete  facts,  extending  in  this  case  over  250 
years  of  his  own  state's  experiences  (722-481 
B.C.)  :  but  he  wrote  merely  as  a  pedagogue, 
utilising  these  events  as  lessons  for  the  "  unruly  " 
ruling  princes,  and  with  the  single  object  of 
magnifying  the  imperial  or  royal  supreme  house, 
which  had  been  effete  and  ineffective  ever  since 
the  republican  outburst.  The  earlier  histories, 
or  such  fragments,  "  gingered  "  up  by  Confucius, 
as  remain,  are  downright  stupid.  There  are  no 
intelligent  generalisations  :  simply  bald  annals 
interspersed  with  a  few  exhortations,  orders  to 
act,  and  a  few  personal  anecdotes.  Chinese 
thought,  usually  very  hazy,  appears  rather  in 
their  ethical  works,  and  these  only  became 
possible  after  an  enlarged  script  had  been  thought 
out  in  principle  at  the  time  of  the  Triumvirate 
— or  perhaps  Duumvirate.  I  am  not  surprised 
that  the  first  Great  Emperor,  who  effected  a 
pretty  clean  sweep  of  the  ancient  kings,  the 
feudal  princes,  and  the  literary  men  about  220 
years  after  Confucius'  death,  made  a  desperate 
effort  to  annihilate  the  existing  literature  too 
• — more  especially  that  portion  which  consisted 
of  polemics,  philosophy,  and  opinion- — sparing 
only  works  on  matters  of  positive  fact,  such  as 
medicine,  husbandry,  divination  (by  astrology, 
then  ranked  as  an  historical  science)  ;  and 
particularly  the  annals  of  his  own  time.  There 
are,  however,  some  smart  conceits  even  in  the 
"  Spring  and  Autumn  "  annals,  or  history  of  Lu 
(Confucius'  own  state)  ;  and  the  industrious 
French  sinologist  M.   Edouard  Chavannes  has 


18 


HISTORY 


[CHAiP.  II 


recently  provided  us  with  a  word  for  word  trans- 
lation of  Sz-ma  Ts'ien's  great  history,  which 
practically  tells  us  all  that  is  known  of  ancient 
times,  and  may  be  regarded  as  the  true  basis 
of  all  Chinese  history.  I  refer  to  that  monu- 
mental work  those  whose  consciences  will  not 
permit  of  their  resting  satisfied  with  my  assur- 
ances as  to  the  unprofitable  nature  of  earlier 
annals  :  .  there  is  no  excuse  for  their  shirking 
the  duty,  if  they  think  someone  should  under- 
take it,  as  the  Shi-ki  now  exists  in  accessible 
form,  done  into  faithful  French.^ 

The  things  which  chiefly  interest  me  in  ancient 


EARLY  CHINESE    DYNASTIES 

Name  of  Dynasty. 

Number  of  Rulers. 

Duration  of 
Dynasty. 

Remarks. 

"  Five  Monarchs  " 

Nine 

2852-2206 

Altogether  mythical. 

Hia 

Eighteen 

2205-1767 

Legendary  and  largely 
mythical. 

Shang 

Twenty-eight 

1766-1122 

Chiefly  legendary. 

Chou 

Ten 

1122-828 

Semi-historical  kings. 

f> 

Twenty-five 

827-255 

Recognised  as  his- 
torical by  Sz-ma 
Ts'ien. 

Chinese  records  are  a  few  observations  about  the 
raids  of  the  horse-riding  nomads  of  the  north, 
and  the  measures  the  Chinese  took  to  repel  them  ; 
but  it  is  only  in  the  second  century  before  Christ 
that  we  get  any  consecutive  account  of  these 
movements.  The  Great  "  First  "  Emperor  of 
the  Ts'in  dynasty,  who  unified  the  Chinese 
dominion  in  222  B.C.,  and  whose  ancestors  seem 
to  have  been,  in  part  at  least,  of  a  race  more 
or  less  foreign  to  the  earliest  lettered  Chinese, 

^  M.  Chavannes  unfortunately  stopped  at  the  47th  of  the 
115  chapters,  his  labours  in  the  direction  of  Buddhism,  the 
Turkish  history,  Sir  Aurel  Stein's  discoveries,  and  other  intensely 
interesting  subjects  having  weaned  his  appetite  for  the  milk  of 
antiquity  in  favour  of  the  strong  meat  of  practical  matter. 


B.C.  300-200]  COMPARISON  WITH  EARLY  ROME  19 

broke  away  impatiently  from  all  old  traditions, 
and  became  sole  master  :   hitherto  his  external 
influences  had  been  chiefly  exercised  over  Tibetan 
and    Tartar   tribes.     Dr.    Bretschneider's    map, 
which  gives  in  various  tints  a  very  good  idea  of 
the   land   levels,    shows   clearly    what   was   the 
natural  configuration  that  determined  this  great 
unifying  movement.     In  the  words  of  the  late 
W.   F.   Mayers,   who  possessed  in  the   highest 
degree  the  historical  instinct,  the  new  empire 
extended  "  from  the  plains  of  Yen  and  Chao 
(the  modern  Ho  Nan  and  Chih  Li)  to  the  banks 
of  the  Yang-tsze  and  the  hills  of  Yiieh  (the  modern 
Cheh  Kiang),  and  from  the  Lake  of  Tung-t'ing 
to  the  Eastern  Sea."     The  nomads,  then  called 
Hiung-nu,  were  for  the  first  time  driven  beyond 
the  northern  bend  of  the  Yellow   River,   and 
nearly  the  whole  of  what  we  call  Southern  China 
was  officially  annexed,  if  in  a  loose  sort  of  way. 
All   China    and   Indo-China   was,    and    still    is, 
peopled  by  a  set  of  people  who  speak  mono- 
syllabical  languages,  with  tones  for  each  separate 
word  ;    just  as  Aryans  are  inflective,  and  the 
Turanians   agglutinative  in  their  genius.     The 
quality    of    these    southerly    annexations    and 
the  degree  of  human  kinship  existing  between 
the  Chinese  and  the  peoples  of  the  south  may 
be  compared  with  the  northerly  annexations  of 
the  Romans,  and  the  degree  of  Aryan  kinship 
existing    between    them    and    the    Gauls    and 
Germans.     Similarly,  though  in  the  reverse  direc- 
tion,  the   hereditary   enemy  Carthage   may   be 
compared  with  the  ancient  Hiung-nu  foe.    But 
despite  the  division  of  nearly  the  whole  area  of 
the  Eighteen  Provinces  of  to-day  into  thirty-six 
governments,  this  first  truly  imperial  dynasty, 
called  that  of  Ts'in  from  the  principality  of  its 
origin    (Shen    Si),    seems    only    to    have    ruled 
immediately    and    directly    over    the    original 
4 


20  HISTORY  [chap,  ii 

Chinese  plain.  Like  the  earliest  settled  states 
of  America,  the  oldest  of  these  thirty-six  divisions 
were  conceived  on  a  very  small  scale,  v/hilst  the 
newly  conquered  "  territories  "• — like  early  and 
half-Spanish  Texas  as  compared  with  ancestral 
Massachusetts — each  covered  an  area  almost  as 
great  as  that  of  all  Old  China. 

This  powerful  dynasty  of  Ts'in  soon  collapsed, 
apparently  from  a  general  incapacity  to  digest 
and  assimilate  all  it  had  so  hastily  conquered. 
The  Hiung-nu  soon  reappeared  upon  the  frontiers. 
It   was   now  that  the   first   definite  tidings   of 
Japan  (then  only  known  as  an  agglomeration  of 
the  Wo  or  Wa  tribes)  began  to  arrive  over  the 
sea.     Amongst  the  ambitious  generals  who  con- 
tested the  imperial  succession  was  a  self-made 
man  of  peasant  origin  named  Liu  Pang  :  he  after 
three  years  of  incessant  fighting  was  proclaimed 
Prince    of   Han,    and    ultimately    assumed    the 
imperial  title  as  Emperor  of  the  Han  dynasty. 
To  this  day,  in  memory  of  this  glorious  house, 
the   Chinese   (with  the   exception   of  the   Can- 
tonese) call  themselves  "  men  of  Han  "   when 
they  wish  to  differentiate  themselves  from  Tar- 
tars, Tibetans,  or  foreigners.      This  is,  indeed, 
the  nearest  approach  to  a  national  designation. 
During  his  seven  years  of  effective  reign  (202- 
194  B.C.),  and  during  the  administration  of  his 
puppet   son,    subject   to   and   followed   by   the 
usurpation   of  the   widowed   consort   (194-179) 
(the  first  of  the  Chinese   "Catherines,"  and  in 
political     character    very    like    the    Dowager- 
Empress  who  died  in  1908),  there  occurred  the 
first    really    authentic    and    properly    recorded 
relations  with  the  Hiung-nu,  who  were  then  quite 
able  to  assert  their  perfect  equality  with  China, 
and  even  presumed  to  talk  of  marriage  alliances. 
The  Great  Khan  Mehteh  (=  Baghdur)  even  sent 
a  flippant  poem  to  the  Dowager,  proposing  what 


B.C.  200-100]     CHINA'S   EXTENDED   SWAY         21 

he  called  a  "  swap."  The  whole  history  of  the 
Hiung-nu  wars  of  the  Han  dynasty  is  intensely 
vivid  and  interesting,  yielding  not  one  whit  in 
any  respect  to  the  Greek  accounts  of  the  Scy- 
thians and  Huns  in  the  respective  times  of 
Alexander  and  Attila.  There  is  excellent  ground 
for  believing  that  the  Scythians,  Huns,  and 
Hiung-nu  were  practically  reshuffles  of  one  and 
the  same  assemblages  of  people' — the  Turks  and 
Mongols  of  later  date. 

The  ill-assimilated  conquests  of  the  short- 
lived Ts'in  dynasty  left  to  the  Han  house,  in 
addition  to  Tartar  troubles,  a  legacy  of  further 
wars  Vv^ith  Corea  (then  called  Chaosien)  and  the 
southern  coasts  of  China,  It  is  possible  that  one 
of  the  motives  for  marching  on  Corea  was  the 
desire  to  turn  the  left  flank  of  the  Hiung-nu. 
Although  in  modern  times  the  "  Yiieh "  of 
Canton  is  written  at  least  (but  not  spoken)  in  a 
different  way  from  the  "  Yiieh  "  of  Cheh  Kiang, 
there  was  no  such  difference  then,  and  there  is 
reason  to  believe  that  one  race,  m.ore  akin  to  the 
Annamese  than  the  Chinese,  then  occupied  the 
whole  of  the  coast  regions  south  of  the  Yang-tsze, 
including  the  whole  valleys  of  the  Canton  (Si 
Kiang)  and  Tonquin  (Red  and  Black)  rivers.  It 
also  seems  that  most,  if  not  all,  of  the  settled 
countries  bordering  on  China  were  then  ruled  by 
Chinese  adventurers  ;  or  at  all  events  by  native 
princes  acquainted  more  or  less  with  the  Chinese 
system  of  records,  and  having  a  Chinese  blend 
in  their  blood  derived  from  immigrants.  Here, 
again,  we  must  look  for  a  parallel  to  the  Romans, 
who,  simply  from  the  fact  of  their  possessing 
business-like  records  and  archives,  soon  spread 
out  on  all  sides,  and  colonised  the  surrounding 
Italian  or  Gallic  towns  or  states.  The  period  of 
conquest  extended  from  138  to  110  B.C.,  and  at 
the  time  when  Wu  Ti  began  his  military  career 


22  HISTORY  [chap,  ii 

(128-108),  the  King  of  Ch'ang-sha  (now  still  the 
capital  of  Hu  Nan)  was  the  only  one  of  the  vassal 
kings   enjoying  independent   hereditary  power, 
though  really  subject  to  the  Emperor  of  China. 
The  Canton  state  was  called  "  South  Ytieh,"  and 
the  Foochow  state  "  Min  Yiieh  "  ;  even  the  north 
part  of  the  latter,  with  capital  at  the  modern 
Wenchow,  was  called   the   "  Eastern  Seaboard 
of  Yiieh."     The  princes  of  both  the  latter  were 
descendants  of  one  common  King  of  Yiieh,  in 
Confucian   feudal   times    a   powerful   sovereign. 
Subsequently  to  110  B.C.  their  populations  were 
moved  to  the  River  Hwai  region.     The  conquest 
of  Corea  led  to  the  further  discovery  hy  land  of 
the  Japanese,   who  then  occupied  (whether  as 
immigrants  or  as  aborigines  is  not  yet  settled) 
the  tip  of  the  Corean  peninsula,  as  well  as  the 
southern    half    of   the    Japanese    islands.     The 
necessity  of  "  turning  the  right  flank  "  of  the 
Hiung-nu,    over   whom   the    Chinese    gained    a 
decisive  success  in  119  B.C.,  led  to  alliances  with 
other  nomad  races  in  modern  Hi  and  the  New 
Territory,    and    finally    to    the    annexation    of 
Khotan,  the  Pamirs,  Kokand,  and,  in  short,  the 
whole  modern  Manchu  Empire  as  it  existed  up 
to  its  fall.     Although  the  Hiung-nu  wxre  not  yet 
com.pletely  subdued,  yet  their  lines  of  communica- 
tion were  pierced.     Parthia,  Mesopotamia,  and 
even   Syria   wxre   distinctly    "  located,"    if  not 
officially  visited,  and  there  are  numerous  indica- 
tions pointing  to  an  acquaintance  with  the  Greek 
dynasties   of  Bactria  and  Affghanistan.      Now 
first  Buddhism  was  distinctly  heard  of,  and  India ; 
the  attempt  to  reach  India  by  way  of  Yiin  Nan 
carried  with  it  the  discovery  and  partial  annexa- 
tion  of  the   various   Shan,    Miao,   and   Tibetan 
tribes.     Hindoo  missionaries  began  to  find  their 
way  to  China  through  Turkestan,  and  the  Bur- 
mese   (then    called    Tan)    are    first    mentioned. 


A.D.  100-200]   DIVISION  INTO  PROVINCES  23 

King  An-tun,  of  Great  Ts'in,  is  said  to  have  sent 
an  expedition  or  mission  by  way  of  Tan  in 
A.D.  166,  and  there  seems  good  reason  to  suppose 
this  word  must  be  "  Antoninus."  Whoever  the 
traders  were  who  undoubtedly  used  to  come  from 
the  West  by  sea,  it  is  stated  that  they  were  called 
Ts'in  (possibly  -=  Syr)  on  account  of  their  comely 
appearance  like  the  Chinese  Ts'in  people.  The 
annexation  of  Nan-yiieh  involved  that  of  Hainan, 
Kwang  Si,  the  Lei-chou  peninsula,  and  at  least 
half  of  Cochin-China,  It  is  even  thought  by 
zealous  believers  that  Christians  and  Jews  found 
their  way  to  China  via  Tartary  during  the  After 
Han  dynasty,  which  reigned  for  two  centuries 
after  Christ  at  modern  Ho-nan  Fu,  as  the  Early 
Han  had  done  for  two  centuries  before  Christ 
at  Ch'ang-an  (Si-an  Fu).^ 

Instead  of  the  thirty-six  provinces  of  Ts'in, 
the  After  Han  dynasty  divided  the  modern 
Eighteen  Provinces  into  only  thirteen,  of  which 
eight  represented  Old  China,  which  then  as  now 
extended  up  to  modern  Shanghai  and  the  sea, 
whilst  the  whole  of  the  south  was  divided  into 
four,  and  the  west  was  made  one,  proof  that 
these  parts  were  still  but  half  opened  to  civi- 
lisation. The  satrap  system  was  in  full  vogue  ; 
princes  were  given  provinces  "  to  eat,"  and  not 
merely  to  govern  as  centralised  officials.  North 
of  the  Great  Wall  were  the  Hiung-nu  (now  broken 
up  and  partly  driven  west)   and   the  Tungusic 

^  As  to  Early  Han,  I  append  particulars  of  the  dates  of  Wu 
Ti's  conquests  in  tabulated  form  : — 

127-125  B.C.  Ordos,  both  corners  of  the  northern  bend  of  the 
Yellow  River. 

115-111  B.C.  Modern  Kan  Suh  (Suh-chou,  Liang-chou,  Kan- 
chou),  up  to  Tun-hwang  (Purun-ki  River). 

Ill  B.C.  Modern  Canton,  Tonquin,  Hainan,  Kwang  Si,  and 
part  of  Kwei  Chou. 

1 10-109  B.C.     Western  Yiin  Nan  and  Sz  Ch'wan.    Eastern  ditto. 

108  B.C.     Corea  (northern  half  only). 


24  HISTORY  [chap,  ii 

hunter-nomads  (aiming  at  the  decrepit  empire 
of  their  former  masters  the  Hiung-nu).  Then 
came  the  pastoral  Tibetan  tribes  of  the  Kokonor 
region  and  the  Upper  Yang-tsze,  gradually 
merging  into  the  Shan  peoples  of  Ylin  Nan,  the 
unorganised  Miao  of  Kwang  Si,  and  the  slowly- 
retreating  Yiieh  tribes,  originally  extending  from 
modern  Ningpo  to  Canton.     These  last  seem  to 


CHINESE     DYNASTIES     WITH-    A     CONTINUOUS     INTELLIGIBLE 

HISTORY 


Name  of  Period 
or  Dynasty. 

Duration. 

Number  of  Kulers. 

Kemarks. 

Ts'in 

255-206 

Five 

The  fourth  declared  himself 
"First  Emperor"  in  221. 
From  206  to  202  there  was 
general  anarchy. 

Han 

202  B.O.- 

Twenty-seven 

From    A.D.    25    the    eastern 

A.D,    220 

branch  moved  its  capital 
from  modern  Si-an  Fu  to 
modern  Ho-nan  Fu. 

Three  Empires 

220-265 

Average  of  three 

The   northern   one   (Wei)    is 

in  each 

the  one  chiefly  in  evidence. 

Tsin 

265-420 

Seventeen 

From  A.D.  317  the  eastern 
branch  moved  its  capital 
to  modern  Nanking. 

From  309  to  439  there  was  a  bewildering  succession  of  Hiung-nu,  Bastard 
Hiung-nu,  Tungusic,  Tibetan,  Tibeto-Tungusic,  Migrated  Tungusic,  and  rebel 
Chinese  "  dynasties,"  ruling  in  various  parts  of  the  north,  from  Corea  to 
Kokonor  ;  in  addition  to,  and  in  competition  with,  first  the  Tsin  Empire,  and 
later  the  Northern  Empire  of  the  Tobas  and  the  contemporaneous  Chinese 
Empires  at  Nanking. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  old  /«  cities  are  now  abolished  under  the 
Republic,  but  for  many  years  the  habit  of  using  the  term  must  continue,  if 
only  in  order  to  make  use  of  existing  maps. 

have  very  soon  lost  their  separate  identity,  and 
to  have  either  permanently  retired  into  Annam 
proper  (Tonquin)  or  to  have  been  merged  into 
the  Chinese. 

From  A.D.  220  to  about  265  China  was  split  up 
into  three  empires  :  a  branch  of  the  old  Liu 
family  of  Han  in  Sz  Ch'wan  (Shuh),  the  Sun 
family  south  of  the  Yang-tsze  (Wu),  and  the 
usurping  Ts'ao  family  in  the  north  (Wei).     This 


A.D.  255-420]     GRADUAL   TRANSFORMATION    25 

state  of  affairs  is  very  similar  to  the  partition  of 
the  Roman  Empire  into  the  East  and  West 
monarchies  at  Constantinople  and  Ravenna,  or 
Rome.  The  continuity  of  imperial  history  is 
now  broken,  for  the  southern  dynasty  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  long  struggles  between  Tun- 
guses,  Hiung-nu,  and  Tibetans  for  predominance 
in  the  north  ;  whilst  the  northern  dynasty  lost 
all  touch  with  the  Syrians,  Hindoos,  Javans, 
an^  other  mercantile  people  coming  in  trading 
vessels  to  Canton  and  other  marts  on  the  coast. 
In  A.D.  222  the  Emperor  of  Wu  divided  the  old 
realm  of  Kiao-chi  (South  Yiieh)  into  two  man- 
ageable halves.  The  name  Kwang-chou,  later 
Kwang-nan,  was  given  to  what  is  now  the  double 
Canton  province,  and  Tonquin  was  called  Kiao- 
chou.  Corea  slipped  away,  and  Chinese  influence 
disappeared  from  the  Far  West.  In  a  word,  the 
whole  Weltpolitik  of  the  great  Han  dynasty 
crumbled  to  pieces.  This  period  of  division  is 
by  no  means  uninteresting,  but  events  are  not 
sufficiently  connected  to  admit  of  pourtraying 
the  situation  with  a  few  strokes  in  a  brief  sketch 
like  this. 

From  A.D.  265  the  Sz-ma  family  (distantly 
related  to  the  famous  historian)  were  for  a  time 
nominally  sole  rulers  of  China,  under  the  style  of 
the  Tsin  dynasty.  This  word  must  not  be  con- 
fused with  the  older  Ts'in,  which,  by  retrospective 
philological  processes  peculiar  to  China,  means 
that  Sein  must  not  be  confused  with  Ziin.  The 
imperial  house  was  distinctly  literary  and  peace- 
ful, rather  than  warlike  and  ambitious ;— in  fact, 
it  developed  those  qualities  which  we  now  con- 
sider peculiarly  Chinese.  It  was  the  great  age 
of  calligraphy,  belles  lettres,  fans,  chess-playing, 
wine-bibbing,  and  poetry-making  ;  of  strategy 
rather  than  hard  fighting,  and  of  political  timidity. 
From  this  time  dates  the  rule  that  no  one  should 


26  HISTORY  [chap,  ii 

set  foot  in  China,  at  least  to  remain,  without 
bringing  tribute.  Moreover,  a  succession  of 
Tartar  dynasties  of  very  short  duration  kept  the 
whole  of  the  extreme  north  in  a  perpetual  fer- 
ment. One  curious  and  permanent  result  of  all 
this  was  that  the  Chinese  centre  of  gravity  was 
entirely  changed.  At  the  present  day,  if  we  wish 
for  etymological  accuracies,  we  find  them  most 
perfect  in  Canton  and  Corea  ;  that  is,  the  best 
representative  of  the  language  spoken  under  the 
two  divisions  of  the  Han  dynasties  is  now  to  be 
found  in  the  descendants  of  emigrants  to  the 
south ;  whilst  the  Coreans,  cut  off  for  many 
centuries  by  Tartars  from  intercourse  with 
literary  China,  have  rigidly  preserved,  in  or 
according  to  their  ancient  form,  the  early  Han 
pronunciation  of  the  Chinese  words  they  borrowed 
2,000  years  ago.  The  rough  nomads  who 
swarmed  into  North  China  not  only  mixed  their 
blood  with  that  of  the  Chinese,  but  debased  the 
language  ;  hence  we  find  that  the  "  mandarin  " 
forms  of  speech,  in  their  relation  to  old  theo- 
retical Chinese,  bear  much  the  same  relation  to 
the  coast  dialects  that  French  does  to  Spanish, 
Portuguese,  or  Italian,  which,  though  not  so 
fashionable,  are  all  of  them  nearer  old  Latin  than 
the  French  can  claim  to  be. 

The  rival  Tartar  dynasties  in  the  north  were 
finally  dispossessed  by  a  Tungusic  family  called 
Toba,  which  ruled  for  200  years  with  great 
vigour  over  North  China,  whilst  the  pure 
Chinese  governed  the  southern  half.  This  was 
the  period  known  as  the  "  North  and  South 
Dynasties"  ;  and  ever  since  that  time  it  has  been 
as  much  the  rule  as  the  exception  for  Tartars  of 
some  kind  to  divide  the  empire  on  equal  terms 
with  native  dynasties.  Here,  again,  we  find  a 
close  parallel  in  Roman  history.  The  Stihchos, 
Ricimers,  Alarics,  and  Theodorics  all  made  way 


A.D.  265-618]  SEMI-' 

for  the  permanent 
Charlemagne.  But 
the  southern  half 
ruled  :  instead  of 
confused  narrative 
the  result  of  which 
him  in  as  thick  a  fo 


BARBARIAN '  DYNASTIES  '27 


northern  Frankish  empire  of 
neither  the  northern  nor 
of  China  was  continuously 
puzzling  the  reader  with  a 
of  how  this  was  arranged, 
would  probably  be  to  leave 
ig  as  before,  I  draw  up  a  short 


Dynasty. 

Family  Kame. 

Capital 
(modern  name). 

Duration 

(A.D.). 

Remarks. 

(West)  Tsin    . 

(East)  Tsin     . 

Sung 
Ts'i 

Liang    . 
Ch'en     . 
Sui 

Sz-ma    . 

do.       .           { 

Liu 
Siao 
do.       . 
Ch'en    . 
Yang     . 

Ho-nanFu  . 
Nanking         \ 
Si-an  Fu         J 
Nanking 

do. 

do. 

do. 
Si-an  Fu 

265-317 

317-419 

420-478 
479-502 
502-556 
557-588 
581-618 

Pure  Chinese. 

do. 

do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 

Han       . 

Chao      . 

Yen       . 

Ts'in      . 
(After)  Ts'in  . 
(West)  Ts'in  . 
Hia 
Wei       . 

(West)  Wei    . 

(East)  Wei     . 

(North)  Ts'i    . 
Chou     . 
Sui 

Liu        .           { 

Shih      . 

Mu-yung          < 

P'u  (or  Fu)      . 

Yao       . 

K'i-fuh 

He-lien 

Toba      . 

/  Yii-wen         \ 

\Toba  .           / 

Kao       .           { 

do.       . 
Yii-wen 
Yang     . 

Ho-nan  Fu    "\ 
Si-an  Fu        / 

Ho-nan  Fu  . 

Lin-chang      \ 
Ting-chou      J 
Si-an  Fu 

do. 
near  Kokonor 
Ning-hia 
Ho-nan  Fu   . 

Yung-p'ing  Fu 

Ho-nan  Fu    | 
Lin-chang      / 
do. 
Si-an  Fu 
do. 

304-329 

319-352 

334-399 

352-395 
384-417 
385-428 
407-428 
386-534 

535-557 

534-550 

550-577 
557-581 
581-618 

THiimg-nu ;       des- 
j    cended  from  Han 
[  by  marriage. 
/"Wether"     tribe 
\   of  Hiung-nu. 

A  Tungusic  family. 

A  Tibetan  family, 

do. 
A  Tungusic  family. 
Hiung-nu. 
Tungusic. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

Pure  Chinese. 

table  showing  the  succession  of  Tartar  and 
Chinese  houses,  one  to  the  other.  I  must  men- 
tion that  capitals  were  often  temporarily  shifted  ; 
also  that  the  list  of  northern  dynasties  here  given 
is  by  no  means  exhaustive.  It  will  be  noticed 
that  the  intermarriages  between  Han  and  the 
Hiung-nu  produced  dangerous  results,  for  one 
barbarian  based  his  claim  to  found  a  Chinese 


28  HISTORY  [chap,  ii 

dynasty  on  the  pretext  that  he  was  the  only 
true  direct  descendant  of  the  first  Han  emperor. 
It  will  also  be  seen  that  the  Tibetans  never  had 
more  than  one  short  innings  ;  never  again  did 
they  assume  imperial  airs,  although  they  made 
many  conquests  in  later  times.  But  the  Hiung- 
nu  (Turks)  and  Tunguses  (Kitans,  Nuchens, 
Manchus)  will  often  reappear  ;  as  to  the  Mongols, 
they  seem  to  have  been  Turkified  Tunguses. 

At  last  Yang  Kien,  an  energetic  general  of 
distinguished  descent  in  the  service  of  the  Chou 
dynasty,  succeeded  in  unifying  China  once  more 
under  one  sceptre.  He  was  murdered  by  his 
son,  who,  though  a  madman  of  the  Caligula 
type,  ruled  for  a  few  years  with  extraordinary 
vigour,  and  carried  his  arms  or  his  prestige  to 
the  uttermost  ends  of  the  empire.  It  is  recorded 
of  this  monarch  that  he  wished  to  communicate 
with  Fulin,  or  "  the  Franks."  Some  argue 
from  this  that  their  name  could  not  have  been 
known  so  early,  and  that  "  Fulin  "  must  mean 
some  other  people.  But  it  must  be  remembered 
that  this  allusion  is  made  retrospectively  by  his- 
torians of  the  T'ang  dynasty  after  it  was  known 
who  the  Franks  were.  Exactly  the  same  thing 
occurs  in  the  Ming  History,  which  explained  all 
about  the  Franks  of  1520,  under  the  events  of 
that  date,  but  after  Ricci,  in  1600,  had  for  the 
first  time  made  it  clear  that  the  Franks,  Fulin, 
and  Ta  Ts'in  were  all  one. 

To  revert  to  the  Toba  Tunguses  of  North  China, 
who  for  200  years  had  managed  things  pretty 
much  in  their  own  way.  During  this  period 
(386-582)  another  nomadic  power  called  the 
Juju,  or  Jeujen  (Gibbon's  Geougen),  had  become 
formidable  in  the  Desert  region,  and  had  also 
succeeded  in  subduing  most  of  the  Hiung-nu 
remnants  in  Southern  Siberia  and  elsewhere. 
One  of  their  subject  Hiung-nu  hordes  was  that 


A.D.  500-600]  TARTAR  AND  FOREIGN  STATES  29 

of  "  Tiirk,"  so  called  from  an  alleged  native  word 
meaning    "  helmet,"    having    reference    to    the 
helmet-shaped    mountain    over- shadowing    one 
of  their  chief  valleys  (lat.  40°  N.,  long.  102°  E., 
or    thereabouts).      These    Turks    were    mostly 
smiths   by   profession,    and   were   employed   by 
their   Jeu-jen   masters   to   forge    weapons    and 
armour  ;  but  as  the  power  of  the  Tobas  declined, 
the  Turks  found  an  opportunity  to  measure  their 
strength  with  the  Jeujen.      Not  only  did  they 
destroy  this  nomad  power  and  take  its  place, 
but  they  began  to  domineer  over  the  last  two 
Tungusic    dynasties    of   North    China,    and    to 
demand  marriage   alliances.     The  Sui   dynasty 
(581-618)  succeeded  in  repelling  the  pretensions 
of  the  Turks,  and  also  overran  Corea  as  a  punish- 
ment for  her  diplomatic  coquetting  with  their 
Khan.     At  that  time  the  modern  Mukden  was 
the  Corean  capital,  and  the  old  name  of  Chaosien 
had  been  abandoned  in  favour  of  Kaoli  (locally 
pronounced   exactly  like   our   word   "  Corea "). 
Relations   with   Annam    were   reopened ;     that 
country  was  divided  into  thirteen  provinces  in 
Chinese  style,  and  tribute  was  exacted  for  the 
first  time.     The  attempted  conquest   of  Corea 
brought  a  mission  in  a.d.  608  from  Japan,  which 
now  for  the  first  time  took  the  name  of  Ji-pan, 
or  "  Sun's-rise,"  and  claimed  an  imperial  status. 
In  the  same  way  the  closer  relations  with  Annam 
had  the  result  that  Chinese  envoys  were  des- 
patched to  Red  Earth  State.     By  this  appears 
to  be  meant  the  modern  Siam,  but  the  Tai  or 
Shan  race  had  not  yet  been  given  that  name, 
which  is  simply  the  Burmese  word  Sham,  written 
by  the  Portuguese  Sciam,  and  corrupted  by  us 
into  a  dissyllable.     For  the  first  time  Loochoo 
was  heard   of,    and  by  that   name   (Liu-k'iu)  ; 
the  Chinese  even  sent  a  quasi-piratical  expedition 
in    order    to    exact    tribute.     Strange    to    say, 


30  HISTORY  [chap,  ii 

nothing  whatever  is  yet  known  even  of  the  bare 
existence  of  Formosa,  though  later  tradition 
mentions  it  as  a  dependency  of  Loochoo,  at  first 
under  the  apparently  Sanskrit  name  of  P'i-she-ja 
(some  such  sound  as  Vichana  or  Vaisadja). 
The  Western  Turks  were  an  impenetrable  barrier 
between  China,  Persia,  and  India ;  and  the 
Tibetans  had  not  yet  become  an  aggressive 
power.  Such  was  China  under  the  Sui  dynasty, 
which  collapsed  before  the  T'ang  house  as 
quickly  as,  800  years  earlier,  the  house  of  Ts'in 
had  fallen  before  Han ;  and  for  the  same  reasons : 
it  was  too  revolutionary,  and  it  was  unable  to 
digest  all  that  it  had  swallowed. 

The  Great  T'ang  dynasty  (618-907)  ranks 
with  the  Han  as  one  of  the  two  "  world-powers  " 
of  Chinese  history.  To  this  day  the  only  Can- 
tonese word  for  "  Chinaman "  is  "  man  of 
T'ang,"  which  fact  tends  to  show  that  the  south 
had  been  isolated  ever  since  the  Han  lost  their 
prestige  there,  and  that  none  of  the  short-lived 
Nanking  dynasties  had  left  any  permanent  im- 
pression on  the  popular  mind. 

Li  Shi-min,  the  real  founder  of  the  T'ang 
dynasty,  son  of  the  nominal  founder,  Li  Yiian, 
is  perhaps  the  only  instance  in  the  whole  course 
of  Chinese  history  of  a  sovereign  who  was,  from 
a  European  point  of  view,  at  once  a  gentleman, 
and  a  brave,  shrewd,  compassionate  man,  free 
from  priggishness  and  cant.  He  personally 
subdued  the  Turks  and  Tunguses  in  such  a  way 
that  for  half  a  century  the  Tartars  were  under 
direct  Chinese  rule  from  Corea  up  to  the  frontiers 
of  Persia,  the  fugitive  sovereign  of  which  latter 
country  actually  came  to  China  for  protection. 
For  the  first  time  in  Chinese  history  the  Emperor 
effectively  conquered  the  three  kingdoms  of  the 
Corean  peninsula,  which  was  also  for  a  few 
generations  governed  directly  as  a  set  of  pro- 


A.D.  600-700]    MUSSULMANS  AND  TIBETANS     31 

vinces.  During  the  reigns  of  his  successors  (one 
of  them  was  a  concubine,  Chinese  "Catherine" 
No.  2,  who  became  rather  irregularly  the  Empress 
of  his  son,  and  Regent  over  his  grandson)  the 
Turkish  power,  after  a  period  of  revival,  was 
finally  broken,  and  passed  into  the  hands  of  a 
kindred  race  known  as  the  Ouigours.  Within  the 
past  generation  numerous  Turkish  and  Ouigour 
monuments  have  been  discovered,  chiefly  by 
Russians.  Not  only  has  it  been  possible  to  re- 
construct the  old  Turkish  language  by  the  light 
of  these  inscriptions,  sometimes  bilingual  or 
trilingual,  but  the  main  points  in  Turko-Chinese 
history  are  sufficiently  confirmed  by  them.  The 
Turks  clearly  were,  and  are  definitely  stated  to 
have  been,  the  old  southerly  Hiung-nu  ;  and  the 
petty  Ouigour  sub-division  of  the  Baikal  group 
of  Hiung-nu,  which  of  course  had  no  cause  for 
appropriating  the  equally  petty  tribal  name  of 
"  Turk,"  did,  when  it  became  the  ruling  tribe 
over  kindred  tribes,  exactly  what  the  Osmanli, 
Mongols,  Manchus,  Russians,  English,  French, 
and  other  dynastic  families  have  done  all  over 
the  world, — it  applied  to  the  whole  dominion 
the  generalising  name  of  a  tribal  part  of  it. 

The  Mahometans,  in  their  struggles  with  the 
Turks  of  the  Bokhara  region,  were  soon  brought 
into  contact  with  China,  and  relations  with  the 
Caliphs  became  fairly  regular  and  intimate. 
The  Tibetan  gialbos  of  Lhassa  also  first  became 
a  power  contemporaneously  with  the  T'ang 
dynasty  :  bilingual  inscriptions  of  this  date,  in 
Chinese  and  a  modified  form  of  Sanskrit,  are 
still  to  be  seen  at  the  Tibetan  capital,  and,  in- 
deed, were  found  still  in  situ  when  we  entered 
it  in  1904.  A  third  great  power,  which  seems 
to  have  been  practically  Siamese,  contested 
supremacy  with  the  Tibetans  in  the  Yiin  Nan-Sz 
Ch'wan  region,  and  we  find  both  Ouigours  and 


32  HISTORY  [chap,  ii 

Abbasside  Arabs  taking  part  with  the  Chinese 
in  these  struggles  round  and  about  the  Upper 
Yang-tsze.  Both  the  Tibetans  and  the  "  Chao 
confederation  "  (chao  is  still  Siamese  for  "  prince  " 
and  "  principality ")  came  within  an  ace  of 
securing  the  imperial  throne  under  the  weaker 
T'ang  emperors  ;  and  as  it  was,  the  Tibetans  for 
some  decades  held  possession  of  Chinese  Turkes- 
tan, During  this  dynasty  an  able  Corean 
general  in  Chinese  employ,  whose  footsteps  have 
just  been  dogged  by  Sir  Aurel  Stein,  carried  the 
Chinese  arms  into  the  region  of  Kashmir  and 
Balti,  and  Nepaul  is  also  heard  of  for  the  first 
time  ;  the  various  princes  of  India  then  opened 
up  diplomatic  relations  with  China.  Annam 
remiained  a  Chinese  prefecture,  but  had  to  be 
defended  against  the  ambitions  of  the  Siamese 
confederation  and  of  Ciampa.  Since  a.d.  940 
Annam  has  been  ruled  by  native  dynasties  tribu- 
tary to  China,  but  now  of  course  it  is  manipu- 
lated by  the  French.  The  relations  with  the 
South  Seas  seem  to  have  had  leisure  to  develop 
themselves  peacefully  during  these  severe 
struggles  all  along  the  line  of  the  land  frontiers. 
The  Hindoo  trading  colonies  of  Sumatra,  Java, 
Borneo,  and  Sulu  were  gradually  displaced  by 
those  of  the  Arabs,  whose  merchants  also  ac- 
quired a  firm  footing  in  Canton,  Zaitun  (Ts'iian- 
chou),  Canfu  (Kanp'u  near  Hangchow),  and 
other  places  on  the  Chinese  coast.  Europeans 
now  begin  to  be  vaguely  heard  of  as  Fulin,  Folang, 
or  "Franks"  (a  name  which  is  almost  certain 
to  have  been  introduced  by  the  Arabs  overland  by 
way  of  Persia,  for  even  in  India  the  English  were 
known  to  the  overland  Manchus  as  the  "  P'i-ling ' ' ). 
The  Fulin  are  identified  by  the  Chinese  of  the 
eighth  century  with  the  old  Ta-ts'in  ;  and,  as  all 
the  world  knows,  the  celebrated  Nestorian  Stone 
of  the  eighth  century  discovered  by  European 


A.D.  700-1100]     THE    TARTAR   MENACE  33 

missionaries  at  the  T'ang  capital  of  Si-an  Fu 
300  years  ago,  describes  in  Syriac  and  Chinese 
the  Christian  rehgion  of  Ta-ts'in.  At  this  time 
the  Cliinese  do  not  seem  to  have  quite  under- 
stood that  the  sea  and  land  routes  to  Arabia 
both  led  to  the  same  place  ;  nor  is  there  yet  any 
trace  of  "  Franks  "  coming  by  sea. 

Just  as  the  destruction  of  the  Hiung-nu  power 
by  the  house  of  Han  paved  the  way  for  Tungusic 
dynasties  in  North  China,  so  the  destruction  of 
the  Turkish  power  by  the  house  of  T'ang  paved 
the  way  for  the  Kitans,  Nuchens,  Mongols,  and 
Manchus.  Moreover,  just  as  a  few  Hiung-nu 
dynasties  enjoyed  short  leases  of  power  before 
the  Tobas  obtained  a  firm  seat,  so  a  few  Turkish 
dynasties  reigned  in  the  north  before  the  Kitans 
(the  name  origin  of  Marco  Polo's  Cathay ans) 
secured  a  real  hold.  The  T'ang  power  finally 
collapsed  in  907,  and  of  the  five  dynasties  that 
rapidly  succeeded  one  another,  until  the  house 
of  Sung  once  more  reunited  the  greater  part  of 
China  in  960,  three  were  of  Turkish  extraction. 
It  was  during  this  period  of  anarchy  that  Annam 
finally  slipped  away  from  China's  direct  rule. 

The  Sung  dynasty  (960-1260),  like  the  Tsin, 
was  never  able  to  get  quite  rid  of  unpleasant 
northern  intruders  ;  and,  also  like  the  Tsin,  it 
was  peaceful,  literary,  and  strategical  in  its 
inclinations  rather  than  warlike,  bold,  and 
ambitious.  The  Sung  era  is  undoubtedly  the 
Augustan  era  of  China  in  all  these  senses.  The 
Kitans  formed  a  powerful  empire  (with  a  capital 
for  the  first  time  at  modern  Peking)  which 
lasted  for  200  years  (915-1115).  They  were  re- 
placed by  their  eastern  subjects  the  Nuchens,  the 
southern  branch  of  whom  had  already  (700-900) 
formed  an  influential  and  civilised  buffer  state 
(Puh-hai)  on  the  north  frontier  of  Corea.  The 
Nuchens  governed  their  empire  with  success  for 


34  HISTORY  [chap,  ii 

over  a  century  (1115-1232),  until  they  in  turn 
were  overthrown  by  the  Mongols.  Roughly 
speaking,  both  Kitans  and  Niichens  ruled  only 
over  Old  China,  i.e.  the  four  provinces  of  Chili 
Li,  Shan  Si,  Shan  Tung,  and  part  of  Ho  Nan ; 
but  also  over  what  we  now  call  Mongolia  and 
Manchuria  : — in  other  words,  over  the  trade  area 
now  fed  from  Tientsin.  Turkestan  and  Tibet 
lay  entirely  outside  their  spheres,  and  a  semi- 
Tibetan,  semi-Toba  state  called  Hia  (Marco 
Polo's  "  Tangut  ")  formed  in  the  region  of  Ordos 
and  the  Yellow  River  Loop  a  barrier  (895-1237) 
between  them  and  the  West.  During  all  this 
time  the  Sung  dynasty,  with  capitals  at  various 
towns  in  modern  Ho  Nan  province,  and  finally 
at  Nanking  and  Hangchow,  had  a  complete 
monopoly  of  southern  affairs  and  the  ocean  trade ; 
whilst  Corea,  Hia,  and  the  Ouigours  kept  up  a 
trimming  policy,  first  with  one,  then  with  the 
other,  often  with  both  of  the  Chinese  powers. 
It  is  curious  to  observe  that  the  true  Chinese 
were  not  now  to  be  found  in  Old  China,  but  in 
all  those  parts  which,  as  emigrants,  their  ances- 
tors from  Old  China  had  populated.  It  is  like 
Scotland  being  repopulated  at  the  expense  of  the 
Picts  and  Scots  coming  from  Ireland. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century 
there  arose  the  mighty  Genghiz  Khan,  whose 
vast  empire  had  its  origin  in  a  petty  squabble 
between  himself  and  an  envoy  sent  by  his 
Niichen  suzerain  to  enforce  from  him  more 
respect.  The  Mongols  soon  made  short  work  of 
not  only  both  the  Chinas,  but  also  of  their 
tributary  states,  such  as  Hia  and  the  Ouigours  ; 
they  moreover  swept  over  Turkestan,  Persia,  and 
the  steppes  beyond  ;  annexed  Russia  ;  ravaged 
Hungary  ;  and  even  threatened  the  existence 
of  Western  Europe.  In  the  south,  Kublai  for 
the  first  time  effectively  conquered  Yiin  Nan, 


A.D.  1200-1400]      MARCO    POLO'S    PATRON         35 

and  even  Burma,  Annam,  and  several  of  the 
Shan  states  lying  between  them.  It  must  here 
be  mentioned  that  so  far  back  as  330  B.C.  the 
feudatory  King  of  Ch'u  (Hu  Nan)  had  conquered 
Yiin  Nan  ;  but  owing  to  wars  with  revolutionary 
Ts'in  the  conquering  general  could  not  get  back, 
and  he  had  therefore  founded  a  kingdom  there. 
To  resume, — Corea  was  made  a  subservient 
dependency,  and  Mongol  influence  was  extended 
all  over  the  southern  seas,  at  least  as  far  as 
Ceylon.  But  Kublai  came  to  signal  grief  in  his 
attempt  to  subdue  Java  ;  still  more  so  in  his 
persistent  and  presum.ptuous  expeditions  against 
Japan,  not  one  inch  of  whose  soil  has  ever  been 
sullied  by  foreign  conquest.  Kublai  Khan  per- 
haps came  nearer  being  Emperor  of  the  World 
than  any  monarch,  Eastern  or  Western,  has  ever 
been  before  or  after  him ;  and,  though  the 
Chinese  affect  to  despise  the  "  frowsy  Tartars  " 
{sao  ta-tsz),  their  historians  frankly  admit  that 
"  Hu-pilie "  (as  they  call  him)  ruled  over  a 
vaster  empire  than  any  other  Chinese  sovereign 
had  ever  done  before. 

But  the  Mongols  soon  became  quarrelsom^e  and 
degenerate  after  Kublai' s  death.  A  young  bonze 
named  Chu  Yiian-chang,  from  an  obscure  village 
not  very  far  from  the  Han  founder's  birthplace, 
raised  a  patriotic  force  of  "  Boxers,"  and  drove 
the  Mongols  back  to  their  pristine  deserts.  He 
speedily  established  friendly  relations  with  Corea, 
united  the  whole  of  the  Eighteen  Provinces  once 
more  under  a  native  Chinese  dynasty,  sent  a 
Frank  messenger  back  to  Europe  to  notify  the 
change,  and  summoned  all  the  petty  powers  of 
the  southern  seas  to  their  "  duty."  Never  was 
there  such  m.arine  activity  in  China  as  during 
the  early  reigns  of  the  Ming  dynasty  (1368-1424). 
Chinese  junks,  under  the  command  of  a  very 
distinguished  eunuch,  amply  supplied  with  funds, 

5 


36  HISTORY  [chap,  ii 

ammunition,  and  fighting  men,  went  as  far  as 
the  Arabian  and  African  coasts  ;  the  Red  Sea 
was  first  vaguely  heard  of,  and  tribute  was  for 
some  time  regularly  sent  from  Arabia,  Ma'abar 
or  Malabar,  Ceylon,  Sumatra,  the  Malay  states, 
Siam,  Java,  Sulu,  Loochoo,  and  Borneo,  besides 
innumerable  other  petty  island  rulers  too  insig- 
nificant to  enumerate  here.  Towards  the  end  of 
the  sixteenth  century  the  armies  of  the  great 
Japanese  Napoleon,  Hideyoshi,  overran  Corea, 
his  ultimate  aim  being  to  conquer  China.  The 
Ming  dynasty,  though  already  decrepit,  rendered 
signal  aid  to  Corea  in  driving  the  Japanese  out. 
During  the  two  preceding  centuries  the  Japanese 
pirates  had  actively  harassed  the  Chinese  coasts, 
and  in  1609  they  temporarily  carried  off  China's 
tributary,  the  King  of  Loochoo.  Manchuria  is 
scarcely  even  mentioned  during  the  280  years 
this  house  of  Ming  occupied  the  throne.  There 
were  frequent  wars  with  the  Mongols,  and  it 
was  in  the  course  of  this  isolated  period  that 
the  obscure  power  of  the  Western  Mongols 
or  Eleuths  had  time  to  grow.  One  Chinese 
emperor  was  taken  captive  by  their  ruler  Essen 
at  a  place  (still  so  called)  just  outside  the  Great 
Wall  styled  T'umu,  and  was  detained  by  that 
chief  for  some  years.  Bell  of  Antermony  gives 
us  the  best  account  of  the  Eleuth  doings  with 
Russia. 

Luzon  (Manila)  is  first  mentioned  in  1410  as 
sending  tribute  to  China ;  but  nothing  more  is 
heard  of  the  place  until  1576,  when  the  sea-borne 
Franks  (Fulangki)  begin  to  attract  serious  atten- 
tion. At  first  this  term  was  applied  indiffer- 
ently to  the  Portuguese,  Spaniards,  and  French  ; 
but  the  Dutch  (Ho-lan),  and  afterwards  the 
English,  were  specially  known  as  "  Red-hairs." 
Chinese  influence  had  almost  disappeared  from 
the  South  Seas  before  Europeans  put  in  an  appear- 


A.D.  1400-1600]  AN  UNHONOURED  DYNASTY    37 

ance,  and  after  the  settlement  of  Malacca  by  the 
Portuguese,  the  whole  political  field  was  practi- 
cally abandoned ;  the  Chinese  traders  there 
willingly  submitted  to  the  government  of  natives 
and  Europeans  without  attempting  to  secure  the 
protection  of  either  the  Ming  or  the  Manchu 
power- — in  fact,  the  latter  was  always  disposed 
to  view  trading  emigrants  in  the  light  of  pirates 
or  traitors.  In  one  case,  however,  the  Manchus 
put  their  foot  firmly  down  :  they  secured  pos- 
session of  Formosa,  whence  the  Dutch  were 
ignominiously  driven.  Since  the  "Boxer" 
affair  of  1900  the  Manchu  and  Republican 
governments  in  turn  have  shown  more  solicitude 
for  the  welfare  and  dignity  of  their  subjects 
abroad. 

The  Ming  dynasty  waged  a  long  war  with 
Burma  and  the  Shan  states  under  the  latter's 
protection  ;  on  the  whole  successfully.  It  also 
maintained  a  preponderating  influence  in  Annam, 
Siam,  Ciampa,  and  Cambodgia.  Tribute  was 
occasionally  sent  from  Arabia,  Samarcand,  the 
Pamir  states,  and  various  parts  of  Turkestan  ; 
but  in  the  main  Chinese  influence  in  Tibet  and 
all  places  west  of  it  and  of  the  Yellow  River  was 
fitful  and  feeble.  In  spite  of  the  vigour  of  the 
founder  of  the  Ming  dynasty  and  of  his  warlike 
son,  who  in  1421  finally  transferred  the  capital 
from  Nanking  to  his  own  appanage  Peking,  on  the 
whole  no  impression  of  affection  or  respect  has 
been  left  upon  the  Chinese  mind  by  this  ruling 
house,  the  emperors  of  which  soon  dropped  into 
the  hands  of  eunuchs  and  favourites ;  and  it 
perhaps  ended  as  pitifully  and  contemptibly  as 
any  Chinese  dynasty  ever  did. 

The  way  the  Manchu  dynasty  came  into  being 
was  this.  During  the  Mongol  times  (1260-1368) 
the  warlike  spirit  of  the  Tungusic  hunting  tribes 
had  been  kept  up  to  the  mark  by  employment 


88  HISTORY  [chap,  il 

on  a  large  scale  in  the  expeditions  against  Quel- 
paert  and  Japan.  As  we  have  seen,  the  Ming 
dynasty  left  the  whole  region  of  what  we  now 
call  Manchuria  very  much  to  itself ;  as  it  bore 
the  Mongol  name  Uriangkha,  it  seems  likely 
that  when  the  Mongols  were  driven  out  of  China 

CHINESE    DYNASTIES    WHOSE    GENERAL    RULING    PRINCIPLES 
CORRESPOND    WITH    THOSE    NOW    IN    VOGUE 


Name  of  Dynasty 
or  Period. 

Duration. 

Number  of 
Rulers. 

Eemarks. 

Sui 

580-618 

Four 

Two  effective  nilers  only.  A 
wonderfully  active  dynasty. 

T'ang 

618-907 

Twenty-two 

^ 

Five  Dynasties 

907-960 

Average  two 

Three  of  the  five  were  of  Turkish 

each 

origin.  The  Kitans  ruled  to  the 
north  of  them  all.  South  and 
West  China  was  nearly  inde- 
pendent of  them  aU,  and  under 
separate  rulers  known  as  the 
"  Sixteen  States," 

Sung 

960-1260 

Eighteen  r 

There  is  no  such  name  at  this  date 
as   "  North  and  South  Djmas- 

Kitans,   ^v 

ties,"   but   there  ought   to  be. 

912-1117 

^  The    Chinese    affect    to    regard 

Niichens,  1 
1117-1232   r 

960-1260 

Twenty- " 
two 

^  Sung  alone  as  historical  Chma  ; 
but  from  1127  the  Simg  had  to 

Mongols, 

abandon  aU  China  north  of  the 

1229-1260  >' 

Yang-tsze,  and  for  300  years  the 

, 

Peking  plain  was  inTartar  hands. 

Yiian 

1260-1368 

Nine 

Kublai  and  liis  successors  first 
occupied  the  Peking   throne. 

Ming 

1368-1644 

Seventeen 

The  first  native  dynasty  to  rule  the 
north  since  450  years. 

Ta'ing 

1644-1911 

Ten 

As  with  the  Mongol  Khans  pre- 
vious to  Kublai,  so  with  the 
Manchu  Khans  previous  to  1 644 
— they  do  not  count  as  "  Sons 
of  Heaven." 

they,  and  more  especially  the  Uriangkha  tribe, 
retained  political  influence  in  Prince  Nayen's 
old  appanage,  which  had  in  Kublai's  time  been 
practically  modern  Manchuria.  The  name  of 
the  celebrated  Mongol  general,  Uriangkhadai, 
simply  means  "  man  of  Uriangkha."  The  only 
occasions  on  which  the  people  in  these  parts 


A.D.  1650-1750]  FACILE    MANCHU   CONQUEST   89 

seem  to  have  had  friendly  intercourse  with  the 
Ming  power  was  when  they  took  advantage  of 
frontier  fairs  to  bring  down  horses,  furs,  and  skins 
for  sale  or  barter  to  the  Chinese.  During  this 
obscure  period  of  imperial  inaction,  the  tribes 
now  grouped  together  as  the  Manchu  race  must 
have  had  ample  opportunity  to  develop  ;  but 
the  Manchus  themselves  are  not  able  to  tell  us 
much  of  their  own  origin  and  doings  previous 
to  the  time  when  their  chief  Nurhachi  conceived 
and  carried  out  the  bold  idea  of  welding  all  the 
Tunguses  into  one  nation.  Some  of  the  southern 
chiefs,  tinged  with  Mongol  blood,  objected  to 
this  fusion,  and  either  took  refuge  in  or  intrigued 
with  China.  This  led  to  frontier  wars  and 
recriminations,  and  finally  to  the  conquest  of 
the  Chinese  borderlands  by  Nurhachi's  son, 
Abkhai.  Meanwhile  a  great  rebellion  broke  out 
in  degenerate  China,  and  the  Ming  general, 
Wu  San-kwei,  who  had  been  sent  against  the 
Manchus,  was  recalled  to  quell  it.  Peking  fell 
into  rebel  hands,  and  Manchu  assistance  was 
foolishly  sought  by  Wu  San-kwei.  The  Chinese 
Emperor  having  meanwhile  committed  suicide, 
and  there  being  no  proper  heirs,  the  Manchus 
saw  their  opportunity,  and  promptly  took  it. 
Abkhai' s  son  and  successor  became  the  first 
Manchu  Emperor  of  China  in  1644.  Previous 
to  this  Corea  and  Eastern  Mongolia  had  been 
reduced  to  submission,  and  special  measures 
were  now  taken  to  draft  the  capable  Mongol 
troops  into  the  Manchu  military  organisation. 
The  Coreans  were  allowed  to  govern  themselves 
on  the  tacit  condition  of  furnishing  troops  when 
called  for.  China  was  soon  conquered,  and  then 
came  the  turn  of  the  overweening  Wu  San- 
kwei  and  other  revolted  Chinese  satraps,  the 
Western  Mongols,  the  Kalkhas  and  Eleuths, 
Kokonor,    and    Tibet.     By    the    time    of    the 


40  HISTORY  [chap,  ii 

Emperor  K'ien-lung  (1736-1795)  the  Chinese 
Empire  had  reached  its  cHmax.  The  necessity 
of  completely  subduing  the  Eleuths  and  Dzun- 
garian  Kalmucks  led  to  the  conquest  of  Hi  and 
Kashgaria.  The  wars  with  Tibet  similarly  led 
up  to  the  conquest  or  pacification  of  Nepaul. 
There  were  also  long  wars  with  Annam  and 
Burma,  in  which  the  Manchus  often  came  off 
second  best,  but  which  resulted  in  a  more  or 
less  genuine  recognition  of  Chinese  suzerainty  ; 
an  authoritative  tone  was  assumed  even  over 
Siam  when  that  country  became  involved  in  the 
peninsular  question.  Of  course  these  southern 
nations  knew  next  to  nothing  of  Manchu-Chinese 
distinctions.  The  Manchus  have  always  left 
Japan  severely  alone,  but  in  Loochoo  they 
found  a  faithful  vassal  (equally  complaisant  to 
Japan)  until  about  forty  years  ago,  when  Japan, 
in  consequence  of  Formosa  disputes,  uncere- 
moniously gave  the  Chinese  notice  to  quit.  The 
Sultans  of  Sulu  have  also  been  respectfully  dis- 
posed towards  the  Manchus,  and  the  tomb  of 
one  of  them  who  visited  Peking  and  died  in 
Shan  Tung  has  been  kept  up  at  the  public  charge 
down  to  our  own  times.  With  these  exceptions 
the  Manchu  dynasty,  which  had  no  real  aptitude 
for  the  ocean,  always,  following  the  example  of  its 
kinsmen  the  Kitans  and  Niichens,  cut  itself  off 
entirely  from  political  relations  with  the  Southern 
Seas.  It  was  only  after  the  Japanese  and 
"  Boxer  "  wars  of  1894  and  1900  that  China's 
pride  began  to  be  touched  on  the  subject  of 
"  bullying "  her  emigrants  in  the  South  Seas 
and  America.  As  a  land  power,  however,  the 
Manchus  have  been  even  more  solidly  estab- 
lished than  the  Mongols  were  ;  for  although  the 
immediate  successors  of  Genghiz  commanded 
the  personal  attendance  before  their  desert  throne 
of  Russian,  Armenian,  and  Persian  princes,  the 


A.D.  1250-1850]     MONGOL  AND  MANCHU  41 

most  powerful  Mongol  Emperor,  Kublai,  really 
ruled  in  an  efiective  sense  over  the  Eighteen 
Provinces  alone,   and  was  at  perpetual  logger- 
heads with  his  vassal  relatives  of  Persia,  Mon- 
golia,  and  Manchuria  ;    moreover,   the  Mongols 
were  not  the  intellectual  or  literary  equals  of 
the  Manchus,    and  never   had   either  the   same 
prudence   or   the   same   financial   grasp    of  the 
country's    resources.     As    to    the    relations    of 
Europe  with  the  Manchu  Empire,  that  subject 
requires  a  special  chapter.     It  only  needs  to  be 
remembered  at  this  point  that  Chinese  struggles 
with  the  nomads  and  Tartars  begin  with  the 
dawn  of  history,  and  are  carried  down  to  our 
own  day,   when   the   "  Boxers "   and   reformers 
have  succeeded  between  them  in  securing  what 
the  Taipings  just  missed — the  regaining  of  China 
for  the  Chinese.      The  Taiping  rebellion  began 
at   a  place   called   Kin-t'ien   (Siin-chou  Fu)   in 
Kwang  Si,  and  is  considered  by  the  Chinese  to 
have    been    owing,    like    the    earlier    "  Boxer " 
revolt  of  1808-16,   to  the  influence   of  foreign 
religion. 


CHAPTER    III 

EARLY   TRADE    NOTIONS 

The  history  of  Chinese  trade,  hke  their  general 
history,  only  becomes  really  interesting  to  most 
of  us  in  its  relation  to  foreign  countries.     From 
the  very  first  the  trader  seems  to  have  taken 
rank  with  our  conventional  usurer,  and  to  have 
been  regarded  as  a  small-minded  person  whose 
main   object   in   life   was,    not   to  increase  the 
public  wealth,  but  to  corner  supplies  ;    nor  does 
the  abstract  idea  of  more  legitimate  trade  appear 
ever  to  have   been   conceived  in  the   sense   of 
"  mutual  exchange  for  the  furtherance  of  com- 
fort and  luxury,"  but  rather  in  that  of  "  steps 
to  keep  the  needy  from  starving,  and  the  armies 
supplied  with  food  and  weapons."     The  Book 
of  History   says :     "Do  not   overvalue   strange 
commodities,  and  then  foreigners  will  be  only 
too  glad  to  bring  them."     In  purely  mythical 
and  semi-historical  times  there  are  traditions  of 
islanders  bringing  tribute  from  the  south,  and 
of  tattooed  tribes  from  part  of  Yiieh  (modern 
Wenchow)    carrying   swords,    shields,    and   fish- 
skin   boxes   for    sale    or   barter.     The    so-called 
"  tribute  "  of  ancient  times  seems  to  have  practi- 
cally meant  "  trade,"  for  each  province  was  sup- 
posed to  bring  to  the  metropolis  the  superfluity 
of  that    which   it    produced    easiest    and   best, 
receiving  bounties  or  presents  in  return.   Swords, 
gold  and|silver,  piece-goods,  tortoise-shells,  and, 

42 


B.C.  800-200]    MONEY-MAKING    DEVICES  48 

later,  copper  coins  were  used  as  currency,  the 
chief  preoccupation  of  the  Government  appar- 
ently being  to  keep  the  people  supplied  with  a 
sufficiency  of  this  primitive  money.     The  swords 
seem  to  have  become  gradually  symbolical  in  the 
shape  of  "  knife  coins."     To  this  very  day  the 
majority  of  the  Burmese  are  as  indifferent  to 
private    wealth   as   we   are   led   to   believe   the 
Chinese  once  were.     It  was  well  before  Confucius' 
time — the  period  of  the  Rival  (princely)  States 
under  the   nominal  hegemony  of  the  Emperors 
or  Kings — that  the  idea   of  accumulating  profit 
seems  to  have  energeticallypossessed  men's  minds. 
One  statesman  (Kwan  Chung,  died  643  B.C.)  is 
said   to  have  invented  a  kind  of  Iwpanar  where 
trading  visitors  from  neighbouring  states  were 
encouraged  by  "  Babylonian  women  "  to  leave 
their  gains  behind  them  ;  thus  this  enterprising 
(Ts'i)  state  sold  its  goods  at  a   profit,   and  got 
the  money  back  in  part.     As  the  historian  says  : 
"  Roguery    and    violence    now    began    to    take 
precedence  of  right  and  justice  :    greed  for  the 
possession     of    riches     replaced    modesty    and 
humility  in  men's  minds  :    huge  fortunes  were 
made  by  some  callous  ones,  whilst  others  were 
starving  before  their  eyes."     In  522  B.C.  customs 
barriers  and  duties  are  mentioned  in  consider- 
able detail. 

When  the  great  Ts'in  conqueror,  the  self- 
styled  "  First  "  Emperor  (221-209  B.C.),  united 
the  empire  into  one  whole,  the  currency  is  stated 
to  have  consisted  in  pounds  of  unminted  gold, 
and  half-ounces  of  some  kind  of  copper  coinage. 
Silver,  pewter,  jcAvels,  cowries,  and  tortoise- 
shell  all  had  their  fluctuating  market  values,  but 
were  not  legal  currency.  The  long-continued 
efforts  made  to  repel  the  northern  nomads  had 
greatly  exhausted  the  Empire  ;  and  when,  in 
addition  to  all  this,  the  struggle  of  competing 


44  EARLY  TRADE   NOTIONS       [chap,  m 

generals  for  the   succession  had   ended  in  the 
triumph  of  the  Han  house,  the  price  of  grain  and 
of   horses    had    become    fabulously    high.     The 
founder  of  this  active  dynasty  may  have  been 
a  great  man,  but  he  was  certainly  not  a  refined 
one.     In    order    to    show    his    contempt    as    a 
sovereign  for  "  writing  fellows,"  he  more  than 
once  deliberately  used  the  hat  of  a  literary  man 
for  the  basest  of  purposes  ;    and  to  evince  his 
hatred  as  a  legislator  for  huckstering,  he  "  for- 
bade merchants  to  wear  silk  or  ride  in  carriages, 
piling  upon  them  taxes  and  charges  of  all  kinds, 
in   order  to   humiliate   and   make  them   miser- 
able."    His  wife  and  son  after  his  death  some- 
what alleviated  these  burdens  as  the  Empire 
gradually  settled  down  into  a  better  financial 
condition  ;  but  the  sons  of  "  merchants  were  still 
unable  to  occupy  any  official  post,"- — an  inci- 
dental statement  of  the  historian  which  leads 
us  to  infer  that  traders  were  under  a  social  tabu. 
The  chief  subject  for  commercial  speculation 
was  grain  for  the  armies,  and  the  trader  of  the 
period  appears  to  have  been  the  same  objection- 
able kind  of  person  as  the  ubiquitous  army  pur- 
veyor and  commissary  so  detested  by  Napoleon 
during  his  Italian  campaigns.      Other  fortunes 
were  made  by  "  melting  iron  and  evaporating 
salt  "  ;    the  rich   so   manipulated  their  wealth 
that,  like  Orgetorix,  they  got  the  poor  into  their 
power  as  serfs.    Later  on,  provincial  satraps  and 
wily    officials    exploited    "  copper    mountains " 
for  their  own  profit ;  clandestine  coinage  reduced 
the  value  of  the  standard  currency  ;    and  so  on. 
The  famous  Emperor  Wu  Ti,  of  the  early  Han 
dynasty  (141-87  B.C.),  whose  military  activity 
first  opened  the  West  to  China,  and  in  whose 
time  the  prestige  of  China  was  at  its  climax, 
adopted  the  arbitrary  methods  of  some  of  our 
English  kings  :   he  sent  commissioners  round  to 


B.C.  100]  "  WAR-BREAD  "  FOR  EARLY  CHINA  45 

levy  fines  and  benevolences  upon  the  rich,  even 
to  confiscate  fortunes  which  were  shamefully 
large.  An  officer  was  established  at  the  capital 
whose  functions  were,  like  those  of  a  Baron 
Potocki,  to  "  prevent  traders  and  shopkeepers 
from  making  huge  profits,  to  take  charge  of  all 
transport  and  delivery,  to  place  artisans  under 
official  control,  and  to  keep  all  prices  of  com- 
modities steady." 

These  are  only  a  few  of  the  devices  employed 
by  the  early  Chinese  legislators  to  evince  their 
suspicion  of  and  contempt  for  traders,  and  it  is 
evident  from  even  the  meagre  details  which  go 
to  make  up  the  above  account  that  merchants 
in  those  days  were  viewed  much  as  Jews  were 
regarded  by  King  Edward  I.     It  does  not  give 
us    much    insight    into    the    methods    of    early 
trade,  nor  is  there  a  word  said  about  organised 
foreign  commerce.     But,  as  hundredweights  of 
grain  and  pieces  of  silk  goods  are  counted  by  the 
five  or  six  million  in  prosperous  years,  we  may 
assume  that  the  backbone  of  revenue  and  also 
of  internal  trade  consisted  in  grain  for  armies 
and   poor   districts ;     salt   to    make   the   grain 
palatable  as  food  ;   iron  to  make  pans  for  boiling 
the  brine,  and  to  manufacture  weapons  for  the 
soldiers  ;    horses,  provender,  and  carts  for  mili- 
tary transport ;    silk  for  clothing  and  wadding 
(no   cotton   in    those   days) ;     and   copper    for 
common    currency.     Gems    of    all    kinds    were 
purely  articles  of  luxury,  used  then,  as  now,  for 
hoarding    purposes.     There    is    nothing    extra- 
ordinary in  all  this.     Even  now  the  only  wealth 
in  many  prosperous  Chinese  villages  consists  in 
a  woman,  a  "  water  buffalo,"  a  pig,  and  a  few 
fowls  ;    iron  pans  for  cooking,  a  rough  spinning 
machine,  a  few  strings  of  cash,  and  suits  of  silk 
or  cotton  clothes  ;    with  lumps  of  salt  or  (at  all 
events  until  the  recent  prohibition  of  smoking 


46  EARLY  TRADE   NOTIONS       [chap,  iii 

and  poppy  growing)  ounces  of  opium  for  barter. 
The  up-to-date  novelties  are  cotton,  kerosene, 
cigarettes,  spirits,  fancy  soap,  perfumes,  and 
beer.  This  being  the  condition  of  Chinese 
wealth  as  I  have  myself  (1869-1894)  seen  it  in  a 
dozen  different  provinces,  it  may  be  easily  ima- 
gined what  the  degrees  of  poverty  m^ust  be,  even 
allowing  for  ultra-modern  republican  progress. 

So  soon  as  ever  foreign  nations  are  mentioned 
in  Chinese  history,  we  hear  first  of  exchange 
presents  between  equals,  or  tribute  from 
inferiors,  both  of  which  are  merely  trade  in  its 
earliest  form.  In  offering  his  hand  and  heart 
to  the  Chinese  Empress-Dowager,  the  poetical 
if  not  Rabelaisian  Hiung-nu  Khan  Mehteh 
(209-173  B.C.)  said  :  "  I  should  like  to  exchange 
what  I  have  for  what  I  have  not."  He  probably 
hinted  at  trade,  though  the  Empress,  woman- 
like, construing  the  offer  in  a  more  personal 
sense,  protested  that  her  bodily  charms- — more 
especially  her  hair  and  her  teeth — were  inade- 
quate ;  probably  she  knew  of  the  Tartar  custom 
of  "  taking  over  "  a  deceased  father's  wives  ; 
at  any  rate,  a  "  girl  of  the  blood  "  was  sent  to 
him  for  his  immediate  needs.  He  himself  sent 
camels,  horses,  and  carts,  receiving  as  an  equal 
in  return  wadded  and  silk  clothes,  buckles,  hair- 
pins, embroidery,  etc.  Sonietimes  the  Hiung-nu 
were  able  to  insist  on  regular  subsidies  of  grain 
and  yeast  besides  these  complimentary  presents  ; 
for  even  then  the  Tartars  were  drunkards,  and 
loved  to  vary  their  native  kumiss  with  Chinese 
samshu.  But  frontier  "  fairs  "  and  even  clan- 
destine trade  are  also  specifically  mentioned  as 
early  as  140  B.C.  The  nomads  used  to  bring 
horses  and  beasts  for  sale  ;  more  especially  the 
"  300  mile  a  day  "  or  "  blood-sweating  "  horses 
of  Kokand  were  highly  prized.  Horses,  pearls, 
sables,  and  excellent  wood  for  making  arms  are 


B.c.500-200] INDO-SCYTHIANS AND PARTHIANS  47 

mentioned  amongst  the  earliest  products  of 
North  Corca,  which  then  extended  far  into 
Manchuria  ;  the  same  thing,  plus  flax  or  hemp, 
of  the  Tunguses  bordering  thereon  ;  the  buck- 
thorn arrows  with  petrified  resin  or  lapis-lazuli 
tips  brought  by  the  latter  were  known  by  report 
even  in  Confucius'  time  (550-480  B.C.).  In  the 
eastern  part  of  the  Corean  peninsula  iron  was 
the  sole  currency  :  both  the  Japanese  and  the 
other  Corean  states  used  to  purchase  their  iron 
there.  When  the  Emperor  of  China  was  en- 
gaged in  turning  the  flank  of  the  Hiung-nu,  he 
sent  the  now  celebrated  traveller  Chang  K'ien 
(160-110  B.C.)  on  a  mission  to  some  of  their 
enemies  whom  they  had  driven  to  modern  Hi. 
Before  the  envoy  got  there,  these  nomads  had 
been  driven  by  the  occupiers  of  Hi  to  Grseco- 
Bactria,  and  after  driving  over  the  Oxus  the 
Aryan  people  of  that  state,  already  enfeebled 
by  Parthian  attacks,  had  possessed  themselves 
of  the  country  ;  thence  they  crossed  the  Oxus, 
and  subsequently  formed  (150  B.C.  to  a.d.  50) 
the  Indo-Scythian  empire,  one  of  the  kings  of 
which,  Vasudeva,  actually  accepted  a  Chinese 
title  a  century  or  two  later  (a.d!  229).  The 
last  Greek  seems  to  have  been  Hermaios,  con- 
quered in  A.D.  50  by  Kadphises;  but  Gondophares 
of  Parthia  a  few  years  later  still  had  a  few  minor 
Greek  kinglets  under  his  sway.  Chang  K'ien, 
taken  prisoner  by  the  Hiung-nu,  escaped  after 
ten  years'  captivity  to  modern  Kokand,  whence 
he  found  his  way  into  Grseco-Bactria.  On  his 
return  to  China  he  brought  a  report  upon  West 
Asia  from  Mesopotamia  to  the  Pamirs.  He 
narrated  his  having  seen  Chinese  goods  in 
Bactria,  and  having  ascertained  that  they  came 
through  India.  This  led  to  his  being  sent  on 
a  second  mission  to  Hi  and  Kokand,  which 
country  was  at  last  conquered  and  forced  to 


48  EARLY  TRADE  NOTIONS       [chap,  in 

accept  suzerainty.  Attention  was  also  given  to 
Yiin  Nan  and  Canton,  the  first  because  it  was 
expected  to  lead  to  India,  the  second  because 
it  was  found  that  Yiin  Nan  produce  came  to 
Canton  by  river  :  this  led  by  degrees  to  the 
conquest  of  both  regions,  and  to  the  better 
knowledge  of  several  new  trade  routes  ;  but  to 
this  day  the  hoped-for  southern  line  of  posts 
extending  from  Canton  to  Bactria  has  never 
been  achieved.  In  the  negotiations  which  pre- 
ceded the  conquest  of  Canton  (110  B.C.),  the 
King  of  South  Yiieh  complained  that  he  was 
not  allowed  to  import  iron,  agricultural  imple- 
ments, or  female  animals.  His  return  presents 
include  such  things  as  rhinoceros  horns  and 
peacocks,  which  probably  came  northwards  to 
Canton  by  sea  in  the  way  of  trade.  From  all 
this  we  may  gather  a  tolerably  accurate  notion 
of  what  the  ancient  land  commerce  of  China 
must  have  been.  For  clearness'  sake  I  use  the 
modern  names  of  some  places. 

The  Phoenicians,  Carthaginians,  and  Syrians 
were  already  old  hands  at  conducting  sea  trade 
when  China  under  the  Han  dynasty  first  found 
herself  with  an  unbroken  line  of  coast,  and  it  is 
abundantly  clear  from  the  works  of  Pliny  and 
Ptolemy  that  an  active  trade  between  Alexan- 
dria and  the  Far  East  had  already  been  in  exist- 
ence for  some  centuries  before  our  era.  Katti- 
gara  was  the  extreme  point  known  to  the  Red 
Sea  navigators,  and  of  course  each  specialist  has 
his  own  theory  as  to  whether  Rangoon,  Singapore, 
Canton,  or  some  other  modern  mart  is  meant. 
It  is  also  a  knotty  point  to  decide  whether 
"  King  Antun's  "  messengers  already  mentioned 
reached  China  in  a.d.  166  by  way  of  Rangoon 
or  by  way  of  "  Faifo "  in  Annam :  I  have 
wandered  on  foot  over  and  examined  both  these 
places,  and  also  inspected  nearly  every  business 


B.C.  200-A.D.  100]      INDIAN    OCEAN    TRADE        49 

port  of  importance  on  the  coasts  of  Burma, 
Siam,  the  Malay  Peninsula,  and  Indo-China, 
besides  reading  up  the  special  ancient  lore  of 
each  place.  Conditions  of  tide,  sandbanks,  cur- 
rent, alluvion,  etc.,  change  with  each  generation, 
just  as  do  the  vicissitudes  of  government.  All 
trade  ports  become  so  because  the  embouchure 
of  some  great  river  facilitates  distribution,  be- 
cause the  anchorage  is  spacious  and  safe,  or  for 
other  similar  reasons  ;  and  the  num-ber  of  such 
desirable  sites  must  then,  as  now,  have  been 
limited  to  a  narrow  choice.  I  am  disposed  to 
think  that  trade  went  on  between  the  Syrian 
merchants  and  the  natives  exactly  as  it  does 
now,  and  probably  at  most  of  the  same  places, 
between  Canton  and  the  coasts  of  India ;  but 
as  the  Burmese,  Annamese,  and  Siamese  as  we 
now  know  them  had  not  then  reached  the 
countries  in  which  we  at  present  find  them  ; 
the  Arabs  had  not  yet  displaced  the  Hindoos, 
nor  the  Europeans  the  Arabs  ;  as,  moreover, 
the  Chinese,  notwithstanding  the  "  First  Em- 
peror's "  forced  migrations,  had  not  yet  mioved 
outwards  or  down  to  the  south  on  a  wholesale 
scale  as  far  as  the  sea  coasts,  it  is  futile  to  waste 
labour  over  unessential  discussions  as  to  detail ; 
and  better  to  content  ourselves,  at  least  in  an 
outline  work  of  this  kind,  with  what  we  know 
for  a  certainty.  It  is  quite  incontestable  that 
the  Roman  Empire  is  stated  by  Pliny  to  have 
obtained  from  China  silk,  iron,  and  furs  or  skins  : 
it  is  also  distinctly  stated  by  native  historians 
that  the  Chinese  obtained  from  Ta-ts'in  glass- 
ware of  all  kinds,  asbestos,  v>^oven  fabrics,  and 
embroideries,  drugs,  dyes,  metals,  and  gems. 
So  far  as  the  northern  parts  of  China,  and  there- 
fore the  Government  and  the  historians,  were 
concerned,  this  important  trade  was  chiefly 
known   of  as  a  land  trade  by  way  of  Parthia 


50  £ARLY  trade  notions       [chap,  m 

(which,  it  is  interesting  to  note,  the  Chinese 
always  call  Arsac,  from  the  generic  name  of  the 
Parthian  kings)  ;  and  if  small  stress  is  laid 
upon  the  part  which  came  by  sea,  this  is  easily 
to  be  explained  by  the  special  circumstances  I 
have  already  touched  upon  :  (1)  the  lateness  of 
China's  appearance  on  the  coast ;  (2)  the  fact 
that  during  half  of  her  historical  existence  China 
has  been  divided  into  two  empires  ;  and  (3) 
the  failure  in  even  modern  times  to  realise  the 
true  position  of  the  West,  and  to  identify  persons 
coming  from  the  south-west  by  sea  with  the 
same  persons  coming  from  the  north-west  by 
land.  In  the  year  a.d.  94  special  facilities  were 
given  to  hawkers,  as  distinguished  from  great 
traders,  throughout  the  empire. 

In  A.D.  98  a  Chinese  agent,  sent  by  a  general 
in  the  field  on  a  voyage  of  exploration  in  order 
to  learn  more  about  the  mysterious  Ta-ts'in, 
arrived  on  the  western  confines  of  the  Parthian 
Empire,  and  endeavoured  to  take  passage  to 
the  countries  beyond  in  a  local  ship, — the  only 
possible  direction  in  which  this  ship  could  have 
sailed  was  down  the  Persian  Gulf  or  westwards 
from  Gujerat  to  Aden ; — but  the  skippers  at 
the  port,  which  was  either  Basra  or  other  port  of 
ancient  Babylon,  or  some  landing-place  contigu- 
ous to  it  up  to  which  the  sea  is  then  known  to 
have  reached,  successfully  endeavoured  to  dis- 
suade him.  The  key  to  their  motives  is  found 
in  the  same  history  that  narrates  the  above 
incident :  "  The  Ta-ts'in  merchants  traffic  by 
sea  with  Parthia  and  India  :  their  kings  always 
desired  to  send  missions  to  China,  but  the  Par- 
thians  wished  to  carry  on  the  trade  with  them 
in  Chinese  silks,  and  it  is  for  this  reason  that 
they  were  cut  off  from  communication.  This 
went  on  until  the  King  Antun,"  etc.  All  this 
is  perfectly  plain ;    in  the  first  century  of  our 


Friar  Odonc's  roufe 


r 


A.D.  200-400]      THE  PEACEFUL  SOUTH  SEAS     51 

era,  at  least,  a  brisk  trade  in  silk  had  already 
grown  up  between  China  and  Rome.  The 
Parthians  tried  to  monopolise  it,  and  the 
Romans,  in  order  to  escape  Parthian  cupidity, 
had  recourse  to  the  sea  route,  with  which  official 
China  had  no  opportunity  of  acquainting  herself 
before  the  second  century.  The  one  link,  and 
that  an  important  one,  between  the  land  and 
the  sea  routes  was  subsequently  forged  by  such 
travellers  as  the  Buddhist  priest  Fah-hien,  who, 
beginning  with  the  fifth  century,  reached  Turkes- 
tan by  way  of  the  Pamirs,  and  groped  their  way 
home  through  India,  and  thence  by  sea  along 
the  Java,  Cambodgia,  and  Malay  coasts.  Ac- 
cording to  Gibbon,  a  Chinese  envoy  appeared  in 
Aurelian's  triumphal  procession  after  the  Par- 
thians had  been  replaced  by  the  Persians. 

Shortly  after  this,  it  will  be  remembered  from 
our  slight  historical  sketch,  North  China  was 
politically  cut  off  from  the  southern  coasts  for 
four  centuries.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore, 
to  find  that  the  northern  Tobas  have  nothing 
new  to  say  about  the  South  Seas,  whilst  the 
southern  dynasties  at  Nanking  are  correspond- 
ingly ignorant  of  events  along  the  desert  routes. 
But  these  southern  dynasties  kept  up  their 
relations  with  Ceylon,  India,  and  Indo-China, 
and  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  a  brisk 
trade  went  on  without  interruption  as  before. 
Up  to  the  time  of  Mahomet,  it  seems  that 
colonies  sent  out  from  India  had  managed  or 
financed  the  entire  ocean  trade  with  the  Far 
East,  if  they  did  not  also  in  most  cases  directly 
rule  the  coast  peoples  of  Java,  the  Malay  Penin- 
sula, and  Indo-China.  Profound  international 
peace  appears  to  have  reigned,  so  far  as  Chinese 
trade  was  concerned.  There  were  no  very 
violent  attempts  made  by  junk-masters  to  con- 
quer the  natives,  nor  by  dark-skinned  rulers  to 
6 


52  EARLY   TRADE   NOTIONS       [chap,  iii 

harass  or  practise  extortion  upon  the  traders. 
There  is  one  specific  but  not  very  well  authenti- 
cated mention  in  a.d.  226  of  a  Ta-ts'in  merchant 
coming  to  the  court  of  the  Emperor  of  Wu  (at 
Nanking,  but  later  at  Wu-ch'ang  opposite  Han- 
kow), who  gave  him  some  black  dwarfs  to  take 
back  as  curiosities  ;  otherwise  nothing  new  is 
said  of  that  country  except  in  connection  with 
the  trade  of  India.  The  history  of  the  Toba 
dynasty,  in  adding  a  few  new  details  about  Ta- 
ts'in,  says  that  the  capital  is  called  Antu 
(Antioch).  The  early  histories,  in  describing  the 
capital,  do  not  give  it  this  name.  Curiously 
enough,  this  northern  account  goes  on  to  describe 
"  another  way  to  Ta-ts'in  by  water  via  Yung- 
ch'ang  "  ;  this  (practically  the  head  waters  of 
the  Irrawaddy)  evidently  has  reference  to  the 
old  story  about  An-tun,  for  it  is  almost  certain 
that  nothing  fresh  had  occurred  in  connection 
with  the  Roman  Empire.  These  various  his- 
torical accounts,  however,  though  manifestly 
often  copies  from  one  another,  or  from  one 
common  original  document  stowed  away  in  the 
imperial  archives,  are  often  important  as  supple- 
menting details  omitted  by  other  copyists  as 
being  unessential.  The  single  important  point, 
and  that  upon  which  to  lay  stress,  is  this  :  both 
Roman  and  Chinese  accounts  make  it  perfectly 
clear  that  land  and  sea  trade  in  silk,  iron,  glass, 
textile  fabrics,  and  many  other  articles  existed 
between  the  Red  Sea  ports  (Petra,  etc.)  and  the 
Indo-Chinese  ports  (Rangoon,  etc.),  and  also 
between  Mesopotamia  and  Si-an  Fu,  during  the 
first  five  or  six  centuries  of  the  Christian  era  ; 
but  so  far  it  does  not  appear  that  the  foreign 
question  of  customs  duties,  transit  charges,  or 
tonnage  dues  ever  came  to  the  front  promi- 
nently, if  at  all,  in  China,  though  customs 
barriers  are  mentioned  in  the  year  483  as  being 


A.D.  600-700]     NATIONAL    NOMENCLATURES     58 

relaxed  in  sulTering  places, — apparently  affect- 
ing trade  between  the  Northern  and  Southern 
Empires. 

The  Arabs  are  first  heard  of  by  the  Chinese  in 
A.D.  628,  under  the  name  of  Tajik,  or  Tazi,  and 
in  connection  with  a  revolt  of  Persia  against  her 
overbearing  task-masters  the  Western  Turks.  As 
Mahomet  was  not  yet  dead,  and  means  of  com- 
munication were  not  more  rapid  then  than  they 
had  been  600  years  earlier,  we  have  here  a  good 
instance  of  the  speed  at  which  news  of  political 
changes  in  Europe  might  reach  China.  The 
name  Fu-lin  now  also  appears  for  the  first  time, 
and  the  people  of  that  country  (which  I  take  to 
be  Fereng,  or  "  Frank  ")  are  baldly  stated  to 
be  "  also  called  Ta-ts'in."  The  energetic  but 
crazy  Emperor  of  the  Sui  dynasty,  whom  I  have 
already  characterised  as  a  sort  of  Caligula,  is 
stated  to  have  unsuccessfully  attempted  to 
open  communications  with  Fu-lin.  As  this 
monarch  sent  an  envoy  by  sea  to  Siam,  per- 
sonally visited  the  Turkish  Khan  in  his  own 
tent,  and  was  present  at  the  capture  of  the  then 
Corean  capital  (now  called  Mukden),  it  is  evident 
that  he  had  both  energy  and  curiosity  enough 
to  solve  the  European  mystery  if  he  could  ;  at 
the  same  time,  even  in  his  day  artisans  and 
traders  were  forbidden  to  enter  officialdom. 
There  have  been  interminable  learned  discussions 
as  to  what  Tazi  and  Fu-lin  really  mean  etymolo- 
gically,  but  there  is  scarcely  any  doubt  that  the 
Arabs  of  Bagdad  and  the  Nestorian  Christians 
of  Syria  are  at  least  sometimes  intended.  We 
have  much  the  same  anachronism,  confusion,  or 
extension  of  ideas  in  the  Far  East  in  connection 
with  the  Russian  word  Kitat  (Mongol  plural 
Kitan),  still  applied  by  them  to  all  C'hinese, 
though  only  a  small  portion  of  Cliina  was  ever 
governed  by  Kitans,  and  none  of  them  were  so 


54  EARLY  TRADE  NOTIONS       [chap,  iii 

governed  when  the  Russians  first  picked  up  the 
word. 

It  needs  not  to  be  told  again  how  Arab  traders 
and  missionaries  spread  themselves  along  the 
African  and  Arabian  coasts,  boldly  navigated 
the  Indian  Ocean,  established  factories  on  the 
Gujerat  and  Malabar  coasts,  in  Ceylon,  Sumatra, 
and  Java,  and  then  in  Canton  and  other  Chinese 
ports.  In  658  the  Chinese  established  a  mathe- 
matical college.  In  the  middle  of  the  seventh 
century  we  also  first  hear  of  tithes  being  levied 
in  kind,  upon  imports  of  spices,  camphor,  and 
precious  woods,  by  an  officer  appointed  specially 
to  oversee  the  foreign  trade :  one  of  these 
functionaries  is  stated  to  have  been  on  duty 
at  Canton  in  a.d.  763,  just  five  years  after  the 
Arabs  and  Persians  had  made  a  filibustering 
attack  upon  and  then  pillaged  and  burnt  some 
warehouses  in  that  city,  as  recounted  in  the 
history  of  the  T'ang  dynasty.  The  reports  of 
the  Arab  merchant  Suleiman  upon  the  con- 
dition of  trade  in  the  Far  East  during  the  ninth 
century,  and  the  comments  of  the  Arab  geo- 
grapher Abu  Seid,  who  wrote  about  one  century 
after  this  again,  confirm  what  the  Chinese  say, 
and  make  it  quite  certain  that  a  lively  inter- 
national traffic  then  pervaded  the  whole  of  the 
Indian  Ocean.  Even  the  Chinese  accounts 
speak  of  foreign  ships  at  Canton  having  a 
capacity  of  1,000  bkarams, — an  Indian  word 
having  the  meaning  of  "  a  quarter  of  a  ton." 

Towards  the  end  of  the  fifth  century  the 
Turks  appear  on  the  Chinese  frontiers,  in  order 
to  purchase  silk  and  wadding  in  exchange  for 
articles  of  their  own  production.  The  Turks 
were  workers  in  iron,  and  the  district  of  Liang- 
chou,  in  or  near  which  they  are  first  heard  of, 
was,  as  we  have  seen,  precisely  the  most  ancient 
iron-producing    place     mentioned     in     Chinese 


A.D.  750-1000]  FOREIGNERS  AND  TEA  TRADE  55 

history.  Tea  now  appears  for  the  first  time  as 
an  article  of  commerce,  and  from  that  day  to 
this  Tm-kestan,  Siberia,  Tibet,  and  finally 
Europe,  have  regarded  this  as  the  main  staple 
of  their  trade  with  China.  The  Nestorian  Stone 
with  Syriac  and  Chinese  inscriptions,  dated 
A.D.  781,  to  which  allusion  has  also  been  made 
in  other  chapters,  gratefully  acknowledges  the 
toleration  shown  to  Christian  travellers  by  the 
monarchs  of  the  T'ang  dynasty.  At  this  time 
there  were  over  4,000  foreign  families  in  Si-an 
Fu,  and  owing  to  the  Tibetans  having  just  then 
occupied  Turkestan,  most  of  them  were  obliged 
to  settle  in  China  for  good.  Foreign  traders 
from  the  West  were  taxed  at  Bukur  on  the 
Tarim  River,  the  fund  going  to  defray  the 
expense  of  keeping  the  high  road  open. 

During  the  period  of  anarchy  which  inter- 
vened between  the  collapse  of  the  T'ang  dynasty 
and  the  rise  of  the  Sung — that  is,  during  the 
greater  part  of  the  tenth  centmy — Canton  seems 
to  have  lost  its  place  as  the  main  centre  of 
foreign  trade.  In  985  the  sea  traders  were 
prohibited  from  exercising  their  calling.  The 
explanation  probably  is  that  petty  local  dynas- 
ties ruled  all  over  South  China,  at  Canton 
amongst  other  places ;  and  until  the  Sung 
dynasty  had  settled  the  question  of  respective 
political  spheres  with  the  Kitans  in  the  north, 
it  could  not  give  attention  to  such  remote  dis- 
tricts as  Canton.  Hence  there  are  more  frequent 
allusions  to  the  land  trade  between  Tangut  and 
Corea  than  to  the  junk-borne  commerce  of  the 
South  Seas.  The  result  was  a  partial  transfer 
of  sea  trade  to  Hangchow  and  (modern)  Ningpo, 
to  which  places  customs  inspectors  were,  at  the 
request  of  the  foreign  spokesmen,  appointed  in 
A.D.  1000  ;  efforts  were  also  made  to  obtain  a 
similar    appointment    for    Ts'iian-chow    (Marco 


56  EARLY  TRADE  NOTIONS       [chap,  iii 

Polo's  Zaitun),  and  this  was  granted  in  a.d.  1087 ; 
but  I  observe  in  the  Sung  history  a  statement 
in  the  year  1114  to  the  efiect  that  the  Hoppo  of 
Canton  was  then  still  obliged  to  send  to  Court 
annual  presents  of  pearls  and  ivory.  The  Bava- 
rian sinologist  Dr.  Frederick  Hirth,  succeeded 
about  twenty  years  ago  in  obtaining  a  very  rare 
Chinese  work,  Upon  Foreigners,  composed  by  an 
imperial  scion  of  the  ruling  Sung  house,  who 
actuall}^  occupied  this  last-named  post  towards 
the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  ;  he  and  the  late 
Mr.  W.  W.  Rockhill  (then  U.S.  Ambassador  at 
Constantinople)  about  four  years  ago  published 
in  their  joint  names  a  painstaking  review  and 
development  of  the  whole  subject  of  ocean  trade. 
As  piracies  at  Swatow,  off  Fuh  Kien,  Canton, 
and  the  Lei-chou  peninsvila  are  frequently 
noticed  in  the  standard  Chinese  histories,  it  is 
probable  that  the  whole  coast  was  in  a  dis- 
turbed state  at  that  timiC  ;  but  in  the  year  1141 
it  is  recorded  that  "  rules  governing  sea-going 
junks  "  were  drawn  up.  In  1182  the  Fuh  Kien 
customxS  officer  was  abolished.  In  1156  the 
taxing  stations  in  all  the  provinces  were  closed 
up,  in  order  to  facilitate  trade.  In  1157  the 
Hoppo  of  Canton  was  directed  to  scrutinise  the 
doings  of  foreign  traders  pretending  to  bring 
tribute.  In  1166  the  two  maritime  custor/is 
stations  of  Cheh  Kiang  were  closed.  In  1173 
and  1182  foreign  traders  were  restricted  in  their 
dealings  with  bullion  ;  and  in  1199  Japanese  and 
Corean  traders  were  limited  in  some  way  in 
their  copper  "  cash  "  operations  ;  it  is  remark- 
able that  similar  suspicious  copper  cash  opera- 
tions were  exciting  grave  attention  at  the  moment 
I  wrote  these  lines  in  1916.  In  1204  Canfu  was  first 
garrisoned  with  marines  ;  and  in  1205  eighty-one 
Cantonese  sub-stations  (?  likin)  were  abolished. 
In  1211  Kwang  Si  cattle  taxes  were  stopped.   And 


A.D.  1100-1200]     JEALOUS    TRADING    RULES     57 

so  on.  The  space  at  our  disposal  only  permits 
of  it  being  stated  here  that  the  Chinese  had  then 
acquired  a  knowledge  of  the  African  coast  down 
to  Zanzibar,  the  Red  Sea,  and  even  (to  a  limited 
hearsay  extent)  of  Egypt  and  Sicily.  The  great 
centre  of  Arab  trade  in  the  Far  East  was  Sar- 
b^iza,  or  the  modern  Palembang  in  Sumatra, 
between  which  place  and  the  coasts  of  Fuh  Kien 
Chinese  junks  plied  regularly  with  the  two 
monsoons,  carrying  their  cargoes  of  porcelain, 
silk,  camphor,  rhubarb,  iron,  sugar,  black  dwarf 
slaves,  and  precious  metals  to  barter  at  Palem- 
bang for  scents,  gems,  ivory,  coral,  fine  swords, 
prints,  textile  fabrics,  and  other  objects  from 
Syria,  Arabia,  and  India.  Cochin-China- — prob- 
ably "Faifo,"  near  the  modern  Tourane- — joined 
in  this  trade  as  a  sort  of  half-way  house,  but 
levied  the  heavy  charge  of  20  per  cent,  upon  all 
imports.  It  is  specifically  stated  that  there 
was  no  foreign  trade  with  the  northern  part  of 
the  peninsula,  i.e.  w^hat  we  now  call  Tonquin. 
After  Palembang  the  most  important  trade 
centres  were  Lamibri  (Acheen),  and  ports  in 
Java,  Borneo,  and  perhaps  Manila.  That  there 
was  an  active  trade  with  North  China  is  also 
evident,  for  in  1130,  when  the  Niichen  Tartars 
had  driven  the  native  Chinese  Sung  dynasty 
across  the  Yang-tsze,  "  Fuh  Kien,  Canton,  and 
Cheh  Kiang  trading  junks  were  forbidden  to  go 
to  Shan  Tung  lest  the  Niichens  might  make  use 
of  them  as  guides."  In  1173  the  export  of  silver 
and  silk  "  to  the  north  "  was  forbidden,  and  in 
1178  it  was  made  a  capital  offence  to  export 
tea  thither  "  on  ox  or  horse  back."  In  1192  tlie 
Ya-chou  (Sz  Ch'wan)  custom-house  was  abolished 

—evidently  referring  to  Tibetan  teas. 
The  accounts  given  by  Marco  Polo   of  this 

same  ocean  trade,  as  it  existed  when  he  visited 
the  South  Seas,  were  at  first  received  in  Europe 


58  EARLY  TRADE  NOTIONS       [chap,  m 

with  incredulity,  but  almost  every  place  named 
by  him,  whether  it  be  in  Africa,  Arabia,  India, 
Sumatra,  or  Java,  can  be  identified  with  trade 
marts  mentioned  either  in  Mongol  history  or  in 
the  above-cited  work  of  the  Sung  dynasty,  or 
else  in  the  history  of  the  Ming  dynasty  which 
succeeded  the  Mongols.  The  late  Colonel  Yule 
has  treated  this  subject  so  exhaustively  in  his 
immortal  work  on  Ser  Marco  Polo  ^  that  it  is 
quite  superfluous  to  cite  further  evidence,  unless 
it  be  to  demonstrate  the  accuracy  or  inaccuracy 
of  insignificant  points  in  detail.  Full  accounts 
have  also  been  published,  by  various  gentlemen 
competent  to  examine  the  Chinese  originals,  of 
the  voyages  of  Cheng  Ho  and  other  Chinese 
eunuchs,  despatched  early  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury by  the  Ming  emperors  reigning  at  Nanking 
and  Peking  upon  various  diplomatic  and  com- 
mercial missions  to  most  of  the  countries  in  the 
Indian  Ocean  between  the  Red  Sea,  the  Persian 
Gulf,  and  Singapore. 

The  above  historical  sketch  of  early  trade, 
imperfect  and  superficial  though  it  necessarily 
is,  T^411  perhaps  suffice,  when  read  in  connection 
with  the  preceding  chapters,  to  prepare  the  way 
for  an  account  of  the  great  turning  point  in  the 
annals  of  the  Far  Eastern  trade — the  arrival  of 
Europeans  in  the  China  seas. 

^  Revised  and  enlarged  in  1903  by  Henri  Cordier. 


CHAPTER  IV 

TRADE  ROUTES 

After  the  first  land  discoveries  of  Han  Wu  Ti's 
generals,  the  Chinese  laid  it  down  quite  clearly 
that  there  were  two  main  roads  to  the  West, 
and  to  this  day  they  are  still  known  by  their  old 
names  of  North  and  South  roalds — i.e.   of  the 
T'ien  Shan  (Celestial  Mountains)  which   divide 
off  the  two.     In  the  Han  times  the  "  six  states 
north  of  the  mountains  "  were  nomad,  and  the 
"  thirty-six  town-states  "  were  settled  in  their 
habits.     The  North,  or  Sungaria  Road,  or  Great 
Road,  is  the  one  which  leads  from  Si-an  Fu, 
north   of  Kokonor,   past   Kan-chou,    Suh-chou, 
and  the  Purun-ki  River  at  Ansi  Chou  to  Hami, 
Barkul,   Manas,   Urumtsi,    and   Hi.     The   T'ien 
Shan   "  must  be  crossed "    at   either  Hami   or 
Turfan,  which  last  place,  under  various  names, 
has  always  been  a  pivot  of  Chinese  power — i.e. 
whenever  it  reached  so  far.     In  other  words,  on 
leaving  Barkul  for  Urumtsi  you  can  go  by  Turfan 
if  you  like.     The  South,  or  Kashgaria  Road,  or 
Short  Road,  branches  off  from  the  North  Road, 
either  at  Turfan  for  Harashar,  or  at  the  Purun-ki 
River  for  Lob  Nor  ;    there  it  again  divides  into 
two  :  — you  can  either  go  past  Korla  north  of 
the  Gobi  steppe  and  of  the  Tarim  or  Yarkand 
River ;    or  you  can  go  south  of  the  Gobi  steppe 
past  Khotan  and  Yarkand,  passing  to  the  north 
of  the  Karakoram  Pass  which  leads  into  Kashmir, 

69 


60  TRADE  ROUTES  [chap,  iv 

and  of  the  watershed  of  the  K'unlun  Range 
which  shuts  off  both  Tibet  and  Kashmir.  This 
Karakoram  Pass  must  not  be  confused  with 
Karakoram  city  in  MongoHa  ;  nor  must  it  be 
forgotten  that  names  of  places  frequently  change, 
and  that  I  ignore  many  of  these  changes  in 
order  not  to  crowd  my  book  with  ungainly 
sounds.  From  Kashgar  it  is  clear  the  earliest 
Chinese  travellers  passed  over  the  Pamirs  to 
Badakshan  and  Kandahar  or  Kabul.  As  I 
prepare  this  new  edition,  Sir  Aurel  Stein  sends 
me  an  account  of  his  miost  recent  travels  in  the 
Wakhan  region,  in  the  course  of  which  he  tramps 
over  and  personally  identifies  the  old  landm.arks 
of  2,000  years  ago. 

There  is  an  old  Chinese  legend  about  foreign 
envoys  having  been  sent  back  to  Annam  in 
"  south-pointing  carriages,"  from  which  story 
some  persons  have  rashly  inferred  that  in  110  B.C. 
the  use  of  the  magnetic  compass  was  known. 
What  we  may  fairly  conclude  is  that  in  those 
times  there  was  already  an  overland  commerce 
with  the  South.  When,  in  or  about  134  B.C.,  a 
Chinese  agent  was  visiting  the  modern  Canton, 
he  noticed  som.e  strange  produce  which  was 
stated  to  have  come  from  modern  Yiin  Nan. 
On  his  way  back  to  the  im.perial  capital  the 
agent  questioned  some  traders  in  modern  Sz 
Ch'wan  about  this  produce,  and  discovered  that 
there  was  a  regular  junk  trade  between  Yiin 
Nan,  Kwei  Chou,  and  Canton ;  this  is  the 
identical  trade,  now  developed  by  steam- 
launches,  that  Hosie  and  Ainscough  have  fully 
described  to  us  within  the  past  decades.  When 
in  112  B.C.  the  generals  of  the  Emperor  marched 
upon  Southern  Yueh  in  several  columns  by  way 
of  Hu  Nan  and  Kiang  Si,  they  took  advantage 
of  these  discoveries  to  ship  troops  also  from^  Sz 
Ch'wan  and  Kwei  Chou,  in  both  cases  by  m.eans 


B.C.  200-A.D.  500]       PARTHIAN  TRADE  61 

of  the  divergent  headwaters  of  the  Western 
River,  which  will  be  further  referred  to  in  the 
chapter  on  "  Salt."  In  196  B.C.  the  King  of 
South  Yiieh  had  already  complained  to  the 
Emperor  that  his  trade  in  cattle,  iron,  and 
utensils  was  being  interfered  with  by  the  Em- 
peror's kinsman  the  King  of  Ch'ang-sha  (Hu 
Nan)  ;  so  that  it  is  evident  the  trade  route  by 
the  Canton  North  River  and  the  (Hu  Nan)  Siang 
River  had  also  been  used  long  before  this. 

The  Chinese  record  that  the  Parthians  carried 
on  a  land  trade  in  waggons  and  a  sea  trade  in 
boats.  The  distances  along  the  road  are  given 
in  such  a  way  that  it  seems  plain  a  Persian 
farsang  (ten  miles)  was  used  as  the  measure  of 
stages.  The  Chinese  pilgrims  some  centuries 
later  measured  by  Indian  yodjanas^  which  are 
perhaps  the  same  thing.  This  matter  of  Par- 
thian distances  has  been  worked  out  by  Frederick 
Hirth,  who  shows  that  from  the  Parthian  capital 
(at  first  on  the  Oxus,  but  later  much  farther 
west)  a  road  led  for  1,600  English  miles  east- 
wards to  the  frontier  at  Antiochia  Margiana  (near 
Margilan  or  Kokand),  which  place  the  Chinese 
historians  of  that  period  called  Mulu — con- 
jectured to  be  the  Muru  of  the  Zend-Avesta. 
Westwards  from  the  Parthian  capital  a  second 
road  ran  1,200  miles  across  the  Zagros  chain  to 
Ktesiphon,  whence  320  more  to  Hira  (port  of 
Babylon).  We  need  not  trouble  ourselves  much 
about  this  western  part  of  the  trade,  which  was 
monopolised  by  Parthians  and  Persians,  and  in 
which  in  any  case  no  Chinese  trading  caravans 
ever  engaged  ;  but  it  is  evident  that  Margiana 
brings  us  back  to  some  place  very  near  the 
Chinese  frontier,  or  at  least  to  the  region  under 
Chinese  influence,  visited  first  2,000  years  ago 
by  Chang  K'ien,  and  last  contested  sixty-five 
years  ago  by  the  Manchus.     There  is  another 


62  TRADE  ROUTES  [chap,  iv 

point  to  be  remembered  :  even  some  of  the 
river  routes  to  Canton  had  only  been  discovered 
a  century  before  our  era  ;  so  that  no  silk  could 
have  been  sent  abroad  from  North  or  West 
China  by  sea,  nor  had  the  imperial  Chinese  any 
properly  controlled  territory  or  any  accumula- 
tions of  silk  south  of  the  Yang-tsze.  Pliny 
(23-79)  mentions  iron  as  one  of  the  commodities 
coming  from  China ;  and  at  the  time  (200  B.C.) 
when,  as  explained  above,  no  silk  could  possibly 
have  gone  direct  from  China  to  Rome  by  sea, 
the  Chinese  specially  mention  a  people  enriched 
by  commerce  in  salt  and  iron  in  the  region  of 
modern  Liang-chou,  and  a  heavy  excise  was  laid 
upon  iron  by  the  First  Emperor,  who  himself 
came  from  Shen  Si.  Thus  it  seems  plain  that 
all  silk  and  iron  went  by  land,  until  the  Parthian 
cupidity,  two  centuries  later,  drove  it  to  the  sea 
route.  The  Chinese  enumerate  over  fifty  kinds 
of  produce  imported  by  them  from  Ta  Ts'in. 

Ptolemy  and  Arrian  (second  century)  speak  of 
Sina,  Thin,  the  Seres,  and  the  "  Stone  Tower  " 
(some  such  place  as  Tashkend  or  Tashkurgan, 
i.e.  "  Stone  City  "  or  "  Stone  Fort,"  near  Yark- 
and).  Sir  Aurel  Stein,  bringing  to  bear  the 
evidence  of  Marinus  of  Tyre  and  Maes  the  Mace- 
donian, places  the  Stone  Tower  at  Daraut- 
Kurgan,  now  a  Russian  frontier  post  in  the  Kara- 
tegin  valley.  In  the  chapter  on  "  Early  Trade 
Notions  "  I  have  already  shown  how  the  over- 
land route  from  Rangoon  and  one  of  the  three 
Burma  roads  to  China  by  the  Irrawaddy,  Mekong, 
or  Salween  {via  Bhamo,  Esmok,  Kiang-hung,  or 
the  Kunlon  Ferry),  was  open  to  the  "  tribute  "  of 
Antoninus. 

The  routes  followed  by  the  Chinese  Buddhist 
pilgrims  are  not  to  be  ignored  when  we  attempt 
to  decide  what  the  ancient  sea  and  land  trade 
routes    were.     At    the    beginning    of   the    fifth 


A.D.  400-550]    CHRISTIANITY  AND  PILGRIMS    68 

century  of  our  era  the  most  celebrated  monk 
of  all  (Fah-hien),  starting  from  modern  Si-an  Fu, 
passed  through  modern  Liang-chou  (near  the  iron 
region  of  200  B.C.),  the  modern  Kan-chou  (long 
the  Ouigour  capital),  Tun-hwang  (still  so  called), 
the  modern  Lob  Nor,  the  modern  Harashar, 
Khotan  (still  so  called),  the  modern  Kugiar, 
and  Tashkurgan  ;  then  from  the  left  bank  to 
the  right  of  the  Indus  by  a  circuitous  road  it  is 
impossible  to  identify,  but  which  was  probably 
the  same  route  as  that  followed  by  Chinese  and 
Hindoo  merchants  at  this  day,  not  to  mention 
our  own  travellers,  sportsmen,  and  explorers — 
i.e.  via  Shahidula,  the  Karakoram  Pass,  Srinagar, 
over  the  Indus  to  Dir  :  here  again  Sir  Aurel 
Stein  has  dogged  the  pilgrim's  steps  with  affec- 
tionate interest.  Thence  Fah-hien  went  to  modern 
Peshawur  and  Kabul,  recrossed  the  Indus  at 
Bannu,  whence  he  travelled  straight  across 
India,  down  the  Ganges  Valley,  to  a  place  near 
modern  Calcutta  ;  took  ship  for  Ceylon,  Java, 
and  on  to  Kiao  Chou  in  Shan  Tung,' — notorious 
since  1897  for  its  violent  seizure  by  the  Germans, 
and  since  1914  for  their  ejection  by  the  Japanese. 
It  appears  the  pilgrim's  junkmen  first  tried  to 
make  Canton,  but  were  carried  by  the  wind 
much  farther  up  north  :  thence  he  returned  to 
Si-an  Fu  (a.d.  414). 

It  is  stated  that  Alexander  Cosmas,  himself  a 
trader  in  Arabia  and  India  (530-50),  says  in 
his  Topography  that  there  was  a  maritime  trade 
thence  with  Tzinistan,  a  place  bordered  by  the 
Eastern  Ocean.  He  also  mentions  Christianity 
as  having  existed  in  Merv  and  Samarcand  a 
century  earlier,  and  as  having  spread  to  the 
Bactrians  and  Huns  :  I  myself  ventured  to 
adduce  evidence  upon  this  point  a  few  years  ago 
in  a  paper  entitled  the  Early  Christian  Road  to 
China. 


64  TRADE   ROUTES  [chap,  iv 

The  next  Chinese  pilgrim  in  date  and  impor- 
tance  was  Hiian-chwang.      Starting   also  from 
modern  Si-an  Fu  in  a.d.  629,  he  reached  (pre- 
sumably by  the   same  route  as  Fah-hien)   the 
region  of  modern  Turfan  and  Harashar,  which 
he  found  then  in  the  hands  of  the  Tiirgas  branch 
of  Western  Turks  ;    thence  past  Kuche  (still  so 
called)   along  the  southern  or  Aksu  road  over 
one  of  the  passes  of  the  T'ien  Shan  Range  to 
modern    Issyk    Kul    and    Tokmak.     Near    the 
"  Thousand    Springs "     he    met    the    Western 
Turkish  Jabgu  Khan,  who  gave  him  an  inter- 
preter to  take  him  to  Kapisa.     As  had  happened 
only  a  generation  earlier  with  the  Greek  envoy 
Zemarchus,  no  idea  of  the  distinction  between 
Western  Turks  and  Original  Central  Turks  seems 
to  have  entered  the  pilgrim's  head.     Thence  he 
went   on   to  Talas   (modern  Aulie-ata),   White- 
water   City    (Ak-su,    or    "  white    water,"    near 
Tchimkend),   to   modern  Nudjkend   and   Tash- 
kend,  Samarcand,  Kesch,  the  Iron  Gates  (Der- 
bend),    Tokhara,    Balkh,    Bamian,    and    on    to 
Kapisa.     Here   he   not   only   brings   us   to  the 
region  discovered  by  Chang  K'ien  in  his  search 
for  the  Yiieh-chi  or  Indo-Scythian  nomads  driven 
away  by  the  Hiung-nu,  and  which  is  also  near 
the  old  Greek  and  Parthian  frontier  of  Margiana, 
but   he  tells  us   stories   of  Kanishka,   King   of 
Gandhara,  a.d.  40,  who  was  himself  one  of  the 
Kushan     or     Indo-Scythian     monarchs ;     their 
appearance,   as  judged  from  the  coins  of  their 
ruler  Kadphises,   is   distinctly   Turkish.     When 
he  passed  through,  the  old  Tokhara  or  "  Haia- 
thala  "   empire  of  the  Oxus  had  already  been 
shattered  by  the  Turks.     He  gives  us  quite  a 
long  account  of  his  travels  and  experiences  in 
both    North    and    South    India,    whence,    after 
innumerable  interesting  experiences,  he  returns, 
via  Taxila,  Kapisa,  the  Hindu  Kush,  and  Andrab, 


A.D.  700]      CHINESE    PRIEST    PILGRIMS  65 

to  the  Oxus  ;  whence  again  through  Shignan 
and  the  Pamirs,  past  Lake  Victoria,  over  the 
mountains  to  Khavanda,  an  old  state  which 
cannot  be  far  from  modern  Kashgar  :  the 
Emperor  himself  went  out  to  the  city  gate  to 
witness  his  triumphant  return.  This  voyage 
occupied  seventeen  years,  and  it  is  interesting 
to  note  that  about  ten  years  after  that  (655-60) 
the  capital  of  Tokhara  was  made  by  the  Chinese 
Emperor,  Yiieh-chi  Fu,  or  "the  city  of  the 
Yiieh-chi"  nomads,  who  had  been  driven  thither 
800  years  earlier.  The  King  of  Tokhara,  as 
friend  of  the  Nestorians  and  head  of  the  anti- 
Arab  party,  about  this  time  sent  a  map  to  China, 
with  a  request  that  the  Arab  conquests  between 
Khotan  and  Persia  might  be  taken  under  Chinese 
protection. 

These  two  are  by  no  means  the  only  priests 
who  made  important  journeys.  A  work  by  the 
bonze  I-tsing  (643-713),  who  had  himself  wan- 
dered to  Sumatra,  "  Malayu,"  the  Nicobars,  the 
mouths  of  the  Hoogly,  and  modern  Behar, 
returned  the  same  way  to  Canton,  and  thence 
to  Ho-nan  Fu  where  the  Court  then  was.  My 
excellent  friend  Edouard  Chavannes  has  trans- 
lated the  whole  of  this  work,  which,  however, 
touches  only  casually  on  geographical  points, 
and  aims  chiefly  at  the  encouragement  of  Buddh- 
ism. It  gives  a  list  of  sixty  priests  who 
made  the  grand  tour,  some  by  land  and  others 
by  sea,  all  moved  by  a  purely  literary  and 
charitable  enthusiasm  in  the  shape  of  an  eager 
desire  to  learn  at  the  fountain  head  all  about 
the  Buddhist  rites  :  at  that  time  these  ruled 
supreme,  and  had  a  strong  civilising  influence 
all  the  way  from  Affghanistan  to  Japan  :  they 
had  not  yet  felt  the  shock  of  competing  Islam, 
either  along  the  seaboard  or  along  the  land 
chain    of   states.     The    fact   that    hundreds    of 


66  TRADE   ROUTES  [chap,  iv 

Nestorian,  Hindoo,  and  Chinese  priests  and 
bonzes  were  able  to  move  freely,  by  land  and 
by  sea,  all  over  Asia  proves,  though  it  may  not 
throw  specific  light  upon  commerce,  that  trade 
routes  were  frequented  then  along  exactly  the 
same  lines  as  they  had  been  before,  and  as  they 
are  now.  So  far  as  I  can  see,  the  Mongol 
generals  of  the  thirteenth  century,  who  generally 
used  the  northernmost  road,  past  Issyk  Kul,  as 
being  in  a  most  suitable  climate  for  their  men 
and  beasts,  never  travelled  by  any  of  the  more 
southerly  roads,  except  on  one  or  two  occasions 
over  parts  of  those  traversed  by  Fah-hien  and 
Hiian-chwang.  The  reason  is  plain  :  there  was 
no  pasture  for  the  animals,  and  no  sufficient 
space  for  their  huge  waggons.  It  must  not  be 
forgotten,  however,  that  irrigation  on  a  large 
scale  was  introduced,  or  at  least  improved, 
under  Chinese  auspices. 

The  road  followed  in  569  by  the  Byzantine 
return  mission,  under  Zemarchus  and  Maniach 
the  Sogdian,  sent  by  Justin  II.  to  the  Turks, 
as  mentioned  above,  actually  passed  through 
Tokhara  or  Sogdiana,  where  the  first  Turks 
were  encountered,  offering  or  selling  iron.  The 
Khan  was  found  in  the  *'  Ektag  "  or  ''  Ektel  " 
(Turkish  Ak-tagh  or  "White  Mountains"), 
whence  Zemarchus,  who  had  meanwhile  been 
presented  with  a  Kirghis  concubine,  accom- 
panied him  to  Persia,  stopping  on  the  way  at  a 
place  called  Talas  :  the  Kirghis  at  this  time 
used  to  pay  tribute  of  iron  to  the  Turks.  I  am 
disposed  to  think  that  the  Khan  "  Bizabul  " 
was  not  the  Great  Turk  at  all,  but  the  Western 
Khan,  whose  ordo  was  somewhere  between  Issyk 
Kul  and  Lake  Balkash.  On  his  way  back 
Zemarchus  crossed  the  "  Oech "  (Oxus),  and, 
after  a  long  journey,  reached  a  large  lake,  which 
he  skirted  for  twelve  days.     Then  he  crossed 


A.D.  600-900]    HISTORICAL    CONFIRMATIONS    07 

four  rivers,  all  running  into  the  north  side  of 
the  Caspian,  traversed  the  Alan  country  and 
the  Caucasus,  and  took  ship  at  Trebizond  for 
Constantinople.  A  few  years  previous  to  this 
the  Turks  had  allowed  Maniach,  as  a  Sogdian 
subject  of  theirs,  to  go  to  Persia  in  order  to 
arrange  for  a  less  obstructed  silk  trade  with 
China ;  but  an  I ndo- Scythian  envoy  there 
named  Catulphus  thwarted  the  project,  and 
therefore  Persia,  fearing  Turkish  resentment, 
sent  envoys  to  North  China.  Consequently  the 
Turks  sent  Maniach  by  way  of  the  Caucasus  to 
Constantinople,  and  the  envoy  was  able  to  state 
that  the  Indo-Scythians  ("Haiathala,"  Eph- 
thalites,  or  Chinese  Eptat)  had  been  annexed.  It 
was  now  that  Justin  sent  him  back  with  Zemarchus 
to  act  as  guide  as  above  related.  All  this  gives 
us  a  wonderfully  clear  confirmation  upon  numer- 
ous points,  such  as  the  ancient  iron  and  silk 
trade,  the  West  Turk  encampment  at  Talas,  the 
road  later  followed  by  Rubruquis,  and  so  on. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  T'ang  dynasty  (seventh 
century)  large  numbers  of  Persian  traders  are 
stated  to  have  come  by  sea  and  spread  them- 
selves over  the  Empire.  Owing  to  the  anarchy 
which  ushered  out  the  ruhng  house  (end  of  the 
ninth  century),  they  and  other  foreigners  at 
last  confined  their  trading  operations  to  Canton. 
Besides  the  accounts  already  mentioned  in  the 
chapter  on  "  Early  Trade  Notions,"  there  are 
the  often-quoted  narratives  of  the  Arabs  Wahab 
and  Abu  Seid  (850-79),  which  testify  once  more 
to  an  active  sea  trade  all  along  the  Indian 
Ocean,  the  Persians  being  apparently  ahead  of 
the  Arabs  in  numbers  and  energy.  It  is  Abu 
Seid  who  describes  the  great  massacre  of  Canton, 
when  (879),  apart  from  natives,  120,000  Mussul- 
mans, Jews,  Christians,  and  Zoroastrians  are 
stated  to  have  perished. 
7 


es  TRADE  ROUTES  [chap,  iv 

It  has  already  been  mentioned  that  in  a.d. 
628,  after  a  century  of  tyranny,  the  Persians 
threw  oil  the  Turkish  yoke.  Pirouz,  the  son  of 
Yezdedgerd,  escaped  from  their  vengeance  to 
Tokhara,  and  appealed  to  the  Emperor  of 
China,  who  sent  a  mission  to  expostulate  with 
the  Arabs  in  651.  The  Persian  King  Yezded- 
gerd had  been  killed  by  the  Arabs  as  he  was 
flying  to  Tokhara,  and  the  victory  of  Kadesieh, 
in  636,  put  an  end  to  the  Sassanides  altogether. 
When  in  661  China  took  over  the  administration 
of  all  the  states  between  Khotan  and  Persia, 
Pirouz  was  appointed  Chinese  Viceroy.  Again 
attacked  by  the  Arabs,  he  fled  in  670  to  Si-an 
Fu,  where  he  died.  The  Chinese  Mussulmans 
have  in  some  way  confused  the  victorious  Arab 
general  Sadi  Wakas  with  the  first  Arabs  who 
came  by  sea  to  Canton,  and  have  always  had  a 
legend  that  the  famous  Arab  pagoda  built  in 
751,  which  still  stands  there,  is  his  tomb.  In 
other  Mussulman  temples  at  Canton  there  are  yet 
to  be  found  trilingual  inscriptions  in  Arabic, 
Persian,  and  Chinese.  It  appears  from  Arab 
sources  that  their  General  Kotaiba  between  705 
and  707  subdued  Balkh,  Merv,  and  Bokhara, 
on  his  return  from  which  last-named  place  he 
was  attacked  by  the  Turks,  Sogds  (Tokhara), 
and  Ferghana  people  (Kokand).  They  defeated 
the  Turks  in  709,  and  set  up  a  King  of  Sogd  in 
710.  No  mention  is  made  of  any  Ephthalite 
dominion,  the  very  shadow  of  which  must  now 
have  totally  disappeared.  All  this  is  in  accord 
with  Chinese  history.  The  Greek  authors,  in 
mentioning  these  "  Abdeli  "  or  Ephthalites,  also 
allude  to  the  "  Taugas,"  a  name  stated  by  the 
Chinese  themselves  in  the  form  Tau-hwa-sh  to 
be  applied  by  the  people  of  High  Asia  to  the 
Chinese.  During  the  eighth  century  several  Arab 
missions  came  to  China  by  way  of  Tokhara,  the 


A.D.  900-1000]        ARABS    AND    CHINA  69 

north  branch  of  the  South  Road,  the  Purun-ki 
River,  Si-ning,  and  Liang-chou.  The  Chinese  men- 
tion Arab  traders  at  Ansi  on  the  Purun-ki  River, 
and  only  last  year  [1916]  the  vivacious  American 
traveller  Rodney  Gilbert  gave  us  his  charming 
sketches  of  Arab  reminiscences  and  survivals  in 
these  parts.  The  early  Arabs  mention  tea  (ch''a-ye, 
the  Russian  chai)  under  the  name  of  sakh.  At 
that  time  the  Chinese  employed  large  numbers  of 
foreigners  in  the  army,  and  both  Arabs  and 
Ouigours  (who  therefore  must  have  some  of 
them  already  become  Mussulmans)  assisted  China 
in  recovering  Si-an  Fu  and  Ho-nan  Fu  from  the 
rebels.  These  or  other  Arabs  would  seem  to 
have  worked  their  way  from  Si-ning  down  to 
the  head  waters  of  the  Yang-tsze,  for  in  801  both 
they  and  the  Samarcandians  or  Tokharans 
(K'ang  state)  were  found  taking  part  in  the 
struggle  between  the  Tibetans  and  Siamese  (Chao 
confederacy)  on  the  head  waters  of  the  Kin-sha 
(Yang-tsze)  River.  It  is  interesting  to  note  in 
this  connection  that,  during  the  Nepaul  war  of 
1788,  a  Manchu  general  made  a  very  bold  march 
from  Si-ning  across  the  Murui-usu  and  Tibet 
direct  to  Nepaul.  Probably  it  will  be  found 
that  both  he  and  the  Arabs  took  the  same  route 
as  far  as  Charing  Nor  (near  the  Yellow  River's 
source),  where  the  road  branches. 

There  is  no  mention  of  the  Arabs  during  the 
Five  Dynasty  anarchy,  between  the  fall  of  the 
house  of  T'ang  and  the  rise  of  Sung  (say  900- 
960)  ;  but  there  is  evidence  of  friendliness 
between  Khotan  and  the  Ouigours,  and  of  a  brisk 
trade  along  the  southern  branch  of  the  South 
Road.  During  the  whole  period  of  the  Tungusic, 
Kitan,  and  Niichen  reigns  in  North  China  (900- 
1200),  the  Arabs  only  found  their  way  once  or 
twice  to  the  north.  In  924  the  founder  of  the  Kitan 
dynasty  was  on  the  Orkhon,  trying  to  persuade 


70  TRADE  ROUTES  [chap,  iv 

the  Kan-chou  Ouigours  to  come  back  to  their 
old  habitat  there.  An  Arab  mission  promptly 
turned  up  on  the  Orkhon,  and  appHed  to  him 
for  a  marriage  alliance.  It  is  not  likely  that  it 
arrived  from  the  north-west  by  the  Uliassutai 
Road  ;  probably  it  came  by  way  of  the  Great 
High  Road  to  the  West  from  Si-an  Fu,  which 
then  ran  through  Ouigour  territory.  In  1120 
another  Arab  mission,  bent  on  a  similar  quest, 
actually  obtained  a  Kitan  princess. 

On  the  other  hand,  nearly  thirty  Arab  missions 
are  mentioned  between  968  and  1116  as  arriving 
by  sea,  and  we  find  Chinese  history  discussing 
the  advantages  of  the  sea  route  over  that  of  the 
land.  Previously  to  all  this,  in  966,  a  priest  who 
had  made  a  tour  through  the  West  by  land,  had 
taken  presents  to  and  "  summoned  "  the  King  to 
do  homage  to  China.  In  one  case  the  King  is 
called  K'o-li-foh  (Caliph),  and  in  another  the 
envoy  comes  along  in  company  with  a  mission 
from  Pin-t'ung  (Binhthuan)  in  Cochin  China. 
In  1017  half  the  duties  "  charged  on  foreign 
trades"  were  specially  remitted  as  a  favour  to 
the  Arabs,  and  these  people  are  afterwards 
spoken  of  at  Canton  as  belonging  to  a  country 
over  40  days'  sail  north-west  of  Ts'iian-chou  to 
Lan-li  (Lambri),  "  whence  the  next  year  60  more 
days."  Later  on  we  shall  see  that  this  wintering 
of  Chinese  junks  in  the  South  Seas  was  quite 
habitual. 

During  the  northern  Sung  dynasty  (from  960 
to  its  flight  south  in  1127)  there  was  a  "  barbarian 
hotel  "  or  caravanserai  at  Si-an  Fu,  inside  of  the 
south  gate  of  the  city.  Nothing  whatever  of  the 
Nestorians  is  heard  during  this  period  ;  but  there 
are  still  existing  some  records  at  K'ai-feng  Fu 
of  the  Jews  there,  who,  in  the  opinion  of  Father 
Tobar,  S.J.,  used  most  probably  to  come  to 
China  as  merchants. 


A.D.  1000]         SEA-TRADE    ACTIVITY  71 

The  best  authorities  on  the  sea  trade  during 
the  Sung  dynasty  are  Frederick  Hirth  and  W.  W. 
Rockhill,  who  have  succeeded  in  discovering  and 
translating  several  very  valuable  and  rare  Chinese 
works  on  the  subject.  As  we  have  seen,  Canton 
lost  its  monopoly  in  a.d.  999,  when  customs 
officers  were  appointed  to  modern  Ningpo  and 
Hangchow  :  Kan-p'u,  Marco  Polo's  Canfu,  was 
made  a  military  or  naval  station  in  1205,  and  lay 
opposite,  between  the  two.  The  Ming  history 
specially  states  that  in  Mongol  times  Canfu  was 
a  great  trading  centre,  and  that  it  had  for  that 
reason  been  walled  in  and  created  a  municipal 
town  :  the  place  still  exists  under  the  old  name 
of  Kan-p'u,  but  is  now  quite  insignificant  and 
almost  forgotten.  However,  in  1087,  long  before 
Kan-p'u  became  a  famous  port,  the  merchants  of 
Zaitun  (Ts'iian-chou)  had  obtained  the  coveted 
official  recognition.  Trade  between  Loochoo  and 
Japan  clearly  went  on,  and  there  are  full  de- 
scriptions of  Sumatra,  Java,  and  Borneo,  which 
places  the  Zaitun  junks  reached  with  the  north- 
east monsoon  in  six  weeks.  But  I  see  no  evi- 
dence that  Manila  had  yet  been  discovered,  as 
suggested  by  Hirth.  The  junks  usually  waited 
until  the  following  spring  for  a  favourable  breeze 
to  take  them  on  to  Ceylon,  the  Malabar  coast, 
and  the  Arabian  and  African  ports,  amongst 
which  Berbera,  Shehr  or  Shaher,  and  Djafar  can 
be  specifically  identified  from  the  Chinese  char- 
acters used.  There  is  ample  evidence  from 
standard  Chinese  history,  as  well  as  from  Mr. 
Rockhill's  and  Dr.  Hirth's  rare  books,  that  Zanzi- 
bar was  included  in  the  usual  voyages,  and  there 
are  also  descriptions  of  Cambay,  Gujerat,  Malwa, 
Bagdad,  Basra,  and  other  places  in  the  Persian 
Gulf.  It  is  to  be  noticed  that  one  Chinese  author 
(a.d.  1000)  identifies  the  "  sea-trading  barbarians 
at  Canton  with  the  "  Uien  sectarians  "  of  the  Ta- 


72  TRADE  ROUTES  [chap,  iv 

ts'in  monastery  at  Si-an  Fu.  At  one  time  it  was 
thought  that  Nestorians  were  referred  to  when 
these  two  words  were  used  ;  but  twenty  years 
ago  the  late  Gabriel  Deveria  proved  them  to 
have  been  Persian  Mazdeans  and  Manichseans. 
As  an  instance  of  the  slowness  of  the  Chinese  in 
identifying  members  of  groups  of  the  same 
nation  coming  by  land  or  sea,  I  may  mention 
once  more  that  during  the  Nepaul  war  of  a 
hundred  and  twenty  years  ago  certain  diplomatic 
representations  were  made  by  Nepaul  with  a 
view  to  assisting  China  in  her  action  against  the 
"  Franks  "  of  Calcutta  trading  "  at  Canton." 
It  was  only  when,  during  the  Yarkand  War,  the 
Manchu  Resident  there  sent  some  mysterious 
information  to  Peking  about  the  "  Franks " 
having  taken  the  Panjab,  that  the  Emperor 
awoke  to  the  startling  fact  that  in  both  cases 
these  feringhi  or  pHling  were  simply  his  old  and 
very  objectionable  friends  the  Ingkili  (English)  ; 
the  point  is  of  importance  in  connection  with  the 
Fulin  question. 

The  conquests  of  Genghiz  Khan  once  more 
opened  freely  the  great  trade  routes  of  the  West. 
The  immediate  cause  of  the  conqueror's  first 
bellicose  rage  was  the  treacherous  behaviour  of 
the  frontier  officials  at  Otrar,  on  or  near  the 
Jaxartes,  near  the  Fort  Perovsky  of  our  day. 
He  left  his  native  place  on  the  Onon  near  the 
close  of  1218,  and  made  straight  for  the  Irtish  ; 
then  he  was  joined  by  various  allies,  and  pro- 
ceeded by  the  road  north  of  Issyk  Kul  to  Otrar, 
which  was  captured  and  looted  towards  the  end 
of  1219.  He  then  marched  across  the  Jaxartes 
upon  Samarcand  and  Bokhara.  Whilst  at  Samar- 
cand  he  took  it  into  his  head  to  send  post-haste 
back  to  Shan  Tung  for  an  old  Chinese  Taoist 
philosopher,  who  at  once  set  off  with  his  Mongol 
guide,  vid  Peking  and  Kalgan,  to  the  Kerulon 


A.D.  1200-1300]  THE  MONGOL  DESERT  COURT   78 

River  ;  whence  along  the  banks  of  the  Tola, 
past  Karakoram,  to  Urumtsi  ;  then  through  the 
Ouigour  country  to  Almalik  (Hi),  by  the  road 
north  of  Issyk  Kul  to  Sairam,  Khodjand,  and 
Samarcand.  There  some  messengers  from  Gen- 
ghiz  Khan  met  him,  and  escorted  him  through 
Kesch,  Derbend,  over  the  Oxus,  to  Balkh.  This 
most  northerly  road  must  not  be  mistaken  for  the 
"  North  (Celestial  Mountain)  Road  "  above  first 
described,  which  runs  from  Hami  and  Urumtsi 
to  Hi,  and  thence  over  the  passes  to  Kashgar. 

In  1254-5  the  King  of  Little  Armenia  sent  his 
brother  to  Gayuk  Khan  with  presents.  This 
prince  first  of  all  visited  Batu  and  Sartak,  as 
Rubruquis  did ;  then  he  passed  through  the 
steppe  country,  and  travelled  to  the  north  of 
Issyk  Kul  by  way  of  modern  Cobdo  and  Ulias- 
sutai  to  Karakoram :  Batu's  brother,  Barca, 
was  the  first  prominent  Mongol  to  adopt  Islam.  In 
returning,  the  Armenian  took  the  most  southerly 
road  by  way  of  modern  Urumtsi  and  the  south 
side  of  Issyk  Kul ;  whence,  through  Tashkend 
and  Otrar,  to  Samarcand,  Bokhara,  Tehran,  and 
Tabriz.  Rubruquis  took  nearly  two  months  to 
get  from  the  Volga  to  Talas  ;  thence  along  the 
road  running  south  of  Lake  Balkash,  from  which 
place  he  reached  Karakoram  in  a  month. 

In  the  first  edition  I  mentioned  Ogdai  Khan's 
great  Kitan  minister  in  the  (now  obsolete) 
discussion  upon  the  Chinese  Calendar.  This 
minister's  great-grandson  Yelii  Hiliang  subse- 
quently travelled  on  foot  from  Tun-hwang  to 
Urumtsi,  Manas,  and  Emil  (near  Tarbagatai). 
On  the  whole,  therefore,  the  Great  Northern 
High  Road,  which  may  be  called  the  main  road, 
manifestly  seems  preferable  to  those  running 
both  n6rth  and  south  of  it,  for  waggons,  cattle, 
and  foot  travellers  alike. 

Marco  Polo  himself  seems  to  have  followed 


74  TRADE   ROUTES  [chap.it 

the  usual  main  road  from  Balkh  through  Dogana 
(Tokhara),  Kunduz,  Talecan,  Badakshan,  Shig- 
nan,  Tagarma  or  Tashkurgan,  Kashgar,  Yarkand 
(perhaps  Khotan),  Harashar,  Lob  Nor,  Sha-chou 
(Tun-hwang),  Cam^ul  (Hami,  orHamil),  the  Tolas 
or  "  plain  "  of  Chikin  (the  Chikin  Ouigours,  not 
the  same  as  the  Talas,  near  Lake  Balkash),  Suk- 
chur  (Suh-chou),  Campichu  (Kan-chou),  Etzina, 
and  Karakoram.  I  should  mention  that  the 
Mongol  history  makes  specific  mention  of  the 
Etzina  road  and  of  many  other  High  Asian 
branch  roads  which  Kublai  either  improved  or 
opened.  All  places  I  name  appear  upon  one 
or  the  other  of  the  accompanying  sketch  maps. 
Marco  Polo's  description  of  Ylin  Nan  and  Burma 
is  simply  that  of  the  chief  trading  road  of  to-day 
by  way  of  Momein  and  Bhamo  (the  Irrawaddy). 
He  never  went  to  the  more  southerly  Shan  states, 
nor  to  Siam  ;  and  consequently  he  does  not 
mention  the  only  two  other  peninsular  trade 
routes,  one  by  way  of  the  Kunlon  Ferry  (Sal- 
ween),  and  the  other  via  Keng-hung  (Mekong). 
Nothing  has  essentially  changed  from  that  day 
to  this,  and  as  many  as  5,000  Chinese  mules  from 
Yiin  Nan  may  be  seen  any  day  during  the 
autumn  trading  season  picketed  amongst  their 
burdens  in  the  vacant  fields  around  Bhamo.  The 
other  two  routes  are  also  in  full  vogue  for  the 
Maulmein  and  Siamese  trade  ;  and  of  course 
the  French  railway  through  Tonquin  to  the 
Yiin  Nan  capital  has  given  a  great  fillip  to  the 
sea  trade  with  Hongkong. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Marco  Polo's  Zaitun 
was  to  all  intents  one  of  the  places  immediately 
north  or  south  of  Amoy,  and  it  almost  certainly 
included,  in  a  trader's  sense,  both  Chang-chou 
and  Ts'iian-chou.  These  are  still  the  great 
emigration  and  trade  ports  for  the  southejn 
ocean,  and  both  of  them  lie  near  the  European 


A.D.  1200-1300]     MARCO    POLO'S    ROUTE  73 

*'  open  port  "  in  Amoy  Bay.  Learned  men  have 
long  disputed  what  "  Zaitun  "  specifically  means, 
but  I  think  it  almost  certainly  stands  for  the 
coast  town  of  Haiteng,  which,  though  not  made 
an  official  "  city  "  until  1564,  must  have  long 
borne  that  name ;  just  as  Shanghai  was  not 
made  an  official  city  till  1291,  Kan-p'u  not  until 
the  Ming  dynasty,  and  Hankow  not  until  1899. 
Kan-p'u  was  one  of  the  grain  stores  when  the 
great  Mongol  general  Bayen  established  his  sea 
routes  in  1283. 

Marco  Polo  describes  the  voyage  from  Zaitun 
to  Ciampa  (Faifo),  Java,  Lochac  (Siam),  Pentam 
(Bantam,  or  Batavia) ;  Little  Java,  Ferlech, 
Basman,  Samara,  Dagroian,  Lambri,  Fansur  (all 
in  Sumatra  Island)  ;  Necuveran  (Nicobar),  Anda- 
man, Seilan,  Maabar,  Masulipatam  (?  Chinese 
"  Soli "),  Madras,  Lar,  Cail,  Coilon,  Comari, 
Delly,  Melibar,  Gozurat,  Tana  (near  Bombay), 
Cambaia,  Semenat,  Scotra,  "  Madagascar " 
(Magadoxa),  Zanghibar,  Abascia  (Abyssinia), 
Escier  (Shaher),  Dufar  (Djafar),  Calatu  (Kalhat), 
and  Cormos  (Hormuz).  Almost  every  single  one 
of  these  names  is  mentioned  either  in  the  Chinese 
history  of  Kublai's  relations  with  the  Indian 
Ocean,  or  in  the  Ming  history  of  the  eunuchs' 
voyages  to  the  West  two  centuries  later.  Where 
the  names  are  not  specifically  mentioned  by  the 
Chinese,  it  is  generally  because  they  had  appar- 
ently changed,  or  for  other  sufficient  reasons  ; 
in  most  cases  discrepancies  are  satisfactorily 
explained.  These  eunuch  travels,  coming  as 
they  did  half  way  between  Ibn  Batuta's  and 
Vasco  de  Gama's  times,  form  a  good  connecting- 
link  between  the  Arabs  and  the  Portuguese. 

Now,  the  Arab  traveller  Ibn  Batuta  sailed  from 
Aden  to  Magadoxa  in  1339,  just  between  the 
Mongol  and  the  Ming  times.  He  went  to  Zanuj 
(Zanzibar),  thence  to  "  Zafar  "  (Djafar),  Hormuz, 


76  TRADE   ROUTES  [chap,  iv 

Lar,  Bengal,  Java  (Sumatra),  "  Mul  Java " 
(Java),  and  El  Zaitun  in  China  ;  whence  again 
to  El  Khansa  (Marco  Polo's  Kinsai,  i.e.  Hang- 
chow).  Here  he  heard  of  the  Mongol  dynasty 
being  on  the  point  of  collapse,  and  he  returned 
to  Zaitun,  where  he  took  a  Sumatra  junk  for 
Java  and  Sumatra,  sailed  thence  to  Kawlam 
(Quilon)  and  Kalikut,  and  got  home  to  Zafar 
and  other  places  in  Arabia  in  1347. 

The  celebrated  Si-an  Fu  tablet  discovered  by 
a  Chinese  Christian,  and  reported  on  by  Father 
Semedo  in  1625,  is  further  testimony  to  the  fact 
that  Syrians,  if  not  also  Europeans,  had  for  many 
centuries  followed  the  great  road  from  Mesopo- 
tamia to  China.     This  inscription  was  the  work 
in  781  of   a  bonze  of   the  Ta-ts'in  monastery, 
and  gives  a  full  account  of  Christianity  :    the 
Japanese  Buddhophile  M.  Takakusu  some  years 
ago  made  ingenious  discoveries  as  to  the  precise 
identity  of  this  learned  bonze,  and  the  difficulty 
found  in  pairing  off  a  competent  knowledge  of 
Pali  and  Chinese  in  one  man.     There  are  many 
evidences  that  the  Chinese  confused  Nestorians 
with    Mazdeans    and    with    Persians    generally. 
That    brilliant    Jesuit    priest    the    late    Father 
Havret,  even  expressed  his  conviction  that  we 
might  yet  discover  on  the  banks  of  the  River 
Wei  (Si-an   Fu)   proofs  of  a  Christian   mission 
contemporary  with  the  apostolic  era ;    but  this 
hope  I  cannot  help  thinking  too  sanguine.     The 
Nestorian  stone,  inscribed  with  perfectly  legible 
Chinese    and    Syriac    characters,    mentions    an 
imperial  edict,  dated  a.d.  638,  according  tolera- 
tion to  the  Christian  religion,  and  specifically  to 
the  priest  Olopen  of  Ta  Ts'in.     The  original  edict 
was  long  unsuccessfully  searchedf  or  by  sinologists, 
and  was  at  last  unearthed  in  1855  by  the  inde- 
fatigable Alexander  Wylie,  the  only  difference  in 
the  wording  of  his  copy  being  that  Olopen  is 


MAP  TO  SHEW    CHINESE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  AFRICA 


•TV 


OCEAJ^ 

(CHINESE 
SOVTUERN 

SEA^) 


76] 


A.D.  800-1800]  FOREIGN  RELIGIONS  IN  CHINA   77 

described  as  a  Persian  instead  of  a  Ta-ts'in  man. 
The  reason  for  this  discrepancy  has  already 
twice  been  explained.  In  the  trilingual  stone 
inscription  (Ouigour,  Turkish,  Chinese)  dis- 
covered a  few  years  ago  by  Russian  travellers 
at  the  old  Ouigour  capital  on  the  River  Orkhon, 
and  dating  from  about  a.d.  830,  mention  is 
made  of  a  western  religion,  either  Manichaeism  or 
Nestorianism,  which  fact  again  tends  to  connect 
Syria  and  Persia  once  more,  through  Tokhara, 
with  China  and  Mongolia.  Nor  must  I  omit  to 
mention  the  eminent  services  of  MM.  Ed.  Cha- 
vannes  and  Paul  Pelliot,  who,  availing  themselves 
of  the  great  cache  of  ancient  literature  discovered 
by  Stein,  Tachibana,  and  others  in  the  Thousand 
Buddha  Grotto  near  Tun-hwang,  have  been  able 
to  set  our  knowledge  of  Chinese  Manichseism 
upon  a  firm  footing. 

Then  we  have  the  mission  of  John  of  Piano 
Carpini,  sent  by  Innocent  IV.  to  Gayuk  Khan 
in  1245-7  (he  passed  through  the  country  of  the 
Naimans  and  Kara-Kitans  ;  thence  along  the 
Sungarian  lakes  to  near  the  Orkhon)  ;  Rubru- 
quis'  mission  of  1254  already  mentioned,  also 
through  the  Kara-Kitan  country,  near  Lake 
Balkash  ;  letters  from  Nicholas  III.  to  Kublai 
Khan,  sent  by  Franciscan  friars  in  1277-80  ;  and 
the  arrival  at  Peking  in  1293  in  order  to  found 
churches  there  of  John  of  Monte-Corvino,  be- 
longing to  the  society  of  the  Friars  Minor.  The 
account  of  his  journey  says  the  Florentine  trade 
route  lay  through  Azov,  Astrakhan,  Khiva, 
Otrar,  Almalik  (Ili),  and  Kanchou.  In  1286- 
1331  Friar  Odoric  in  his  own  person  travelled 
over  parts  of  both  the  land  and  the  sea  roads 
to  China ;  Trebizond,  Tabriz,  Shiraz,  Bagdad, 
Hormuz,  India  (Tana),  Malabar,  Quilon,  Ceylon, 
Mailapur  (Madras) ;  thence  by  Chinese  junk  to 
Sumatra,  Java,  Borneo,  Ciampa,  Canton,  Zaitun, 


78  TRADE   ROUTES  [chap,  iv 

over  the  mountains  to  *'  Cansay  "  (Hangchow). 
This  last  stretch  of  country  I  have  been  over  twice 
myself,  crossing  two  sets  of  passes.  In  1336  the 
last  Mongol  emperor  sent  letters  by  a  "  Frank  " 
named  Andrea  to  Benedict  XII.,  who  replied 
in  the  following  year  to  the  Khan's  message. 
In  1340  the  Franciscan  priest  John  of  Marignoli 
built  a  new  church  at  Jagatai's  capital  of  Almalik 
(Hi),  where  in  1339  Pascal's  Spanish  mission  had 
been  massacred.  In  1342  this  fresh  mission  was 
once  more  destroyed  ;  and  in  that  same  year 
Nicolas  de  Bonnet  arrived  in  Peking  as  successor 
to  Monte-Corvino.  We  have  already  seen  in  the 
chapter  on  "  History  "  how  a  "  Fulang  "  man 
brought  a  wonderful  horse  to  China  in  1342,  and 
how  the  founder  of  the  Ming  dynasty  in  1371 
sent  a  message  to  Europe  by  one  "  Niekulun,"  a 
"  Fulin  "  man,  who  had  come  to  trade  at  Peking 
in  1367.  In  1375  another  Fulin  man  came  with 
the  Sumatra  mission  to  China.  Both  Marignoli 
and  Pegoletti  bear  witness  to  the  fact  that 
"  Franks "  had  nothing  to  do  with  France, 
but  meant  all  the  Christian  peoples  west  of 
''  Romania  "  (  ?  Greece)  ;  even  now  the  modern 
Greeks  use  the  word  "  Franks  "  in  this  sense. 

The  Ming  envoy  sent  to  demand  tribute  from 
Tamerlane  in  1395  travelled  via  the  Kia-yiih 
Pass,  Hami,  Turfan,  Hi,  and  Samarcand,  whence 
he  was  taken  on  to  Shiraz  and  Ispahan,  staying 
some  years  in  the  country.  Owing  to  a  dispute, 
probably  about  tribute,  in  1401,  the  envoy  was 
forcibly  detained  ;  and  in  1405  Tam.erlane,  for 
reasons  not  given,  but  evidently  incensed  at  the 
demand  for  tribute,  crossed  the  Jaxartes  with 
an  immense  host  in  order  to  invade  China.  As 
he  died  at  Otrar,  he  evidently  followed  so  far, 
and  intended  to  follow  farther,  but  in  a  reverse 
direction,  the  footsteps  of  Genghiz  Khan.  The 
Castilian  envoy,  Clavijo,  who  was  then  at  Samar- 


A.D.  U00-1450J  OLD   WORDS   FOR  "CHINA"     71) 

cand,  has  left  it  on  record  that  a  caravan  of  800 
camels,  laden  with  silk,  musk,  rhubarb,  and 
gems,  came  from  "  Cambalu  in  Cathay  "  in  1404. 
The  son  of  Tamerlane  sent  numerous  missions 
to  China,  as  recorded  in  the  Ming  annals,  and 
amongst  the  many  return  Chinese  envoys  there 
was  one  who  visited  Hami,  Turfan,  Sairam,  Otrar, 
Tashkend,  Samarcand,  Kesch,  Bokhara,  Herat, 
Termed,  and  Badakshan. 

A  Persian  trader  in  a  work  cited  by  Dr.  Bret- 
schneider  upon  Tchin  or  Khata  trading,  and  dated 
about  1500,  mentions  a  mission  to  China  sent  by 
Tamerlane's  grandson  about  the  year  1449,  but 
the  Turkish  translation  of  this  Persian  work  does 
not  enable  us  to  identify  the  names  of  places 
along  his  route.  The  Ming  history  says  that 
missions  came  from  Samarcand  in  1430,  1437, 
1445,  1446,  and  1449.  It  is  interesting  to  note 
how  long  the  word  Kitan  (Khata)  and  Cambalu 
(Peking)  survive,  together  with  the  older  word 
Thin,  Tzin,  or  Tchin.  It  was  reserved  for  Bene- 
dict Goes  (1602-7),  who  travelled  from  Kabul, 
Yarkand,  and  the  Upper  Oxus  to  Suh-chou, 
first  to  prove  that  "  Cathay  "  and  "  China  " 
were  one  and  the  same  place.  Lieutenant  Wood 
in  1838  was  the  next  European  to  follow  the 
route  of  Polo  and  Goes. 

The  sea  trade  routes  followed  by  the  eunuchs 
of  the  Ming  dynasty  are  perfectly  clear.  And 
after  all  it  is  only  in  petty  matters  of  shifting 
banks,  shifting  bars,  and  consequently  shifting 
emporia,  that  we  can  possibly  go  wrong  ;  for  a 
junk  which  leaves  its  anchorage  must  either  go 
back  or  go  on,  in  either  of  which  cases  it  calls  at 
fixed  places.  The  chief  one  of  these  leaders  was 
the  Chinese  Narses  named  Cheng  Ho.  In  1405 
he  took  sixty-two  junks  and  27,800  men  from 
Shanghai  to  Amoy,  Faifo,  Binh-thuan,  Pulo- 
Condor  (island),  and  Kampot  (Cambodgia),  to 


80  TRADE   ROUTES  [chap,  iv 

all  which  places  I  went  myself  in  1888,  and  in 
the  same  order,  so  that  I  can  personally  vouch 
for  the  reasonableness  of  the  eunuch's  stages. 
Either  on  this  or  the  next  occasion  he  took 
Kilung  (Formosa)  on  his  way,  but  failed  to  induce 
the  savages  of  those  parts  to  bring  tribute  ;  but 
he  left  presents,  and  describes  them,  and  also 
mentions  the  origin  of  the  name  Tamsui  (Fresh 
Water),  which  is  still  that  of  a  treaty  port.  In 
1407-9  the  same  eunuch  went  to  Palembang, 
Lambri,  Malacca,  Siam,  Cail,  and  Ceylon,  fighting 
several  considerable  battles  near  Acheen  and 
Kandy,  and  asserting  China's  over- sovereignty 
in  a  very  decided  way.  In  1412-16  he  visited 
Pahang,  Lambri,  Aru,  Kelantan,  the  Andaman 
Islands,  Cochin,  Quilon,  Calicut,  Hormuz,  Aden, 
Magadoxa,  Jubb,  and  Brava.  In  1430-1  he 
found  it  necessary  to  go  the  round  of  most  of  the 
above  places  again.  He  himself  never  actually 
went  up  the  Persian  Gulf,  nor  up  the  Red  Sea  ; 
but  he  sent  lieutenants,  who  seem  to  have  pene- 
trated to  Jeddah,  as  they  brought  back  detailed 
accounts  of  the  land  of  Mahomet.  Nor  does  he 
seem  to  have  ever  gone  personally  to  Java  or 
Borneo,  which  islands,  however,  were  both  re- 
peatedly visited  by  other  eunuchs  ;  as  also  were 
Madras,  Bengal,  and  (by  land)  Nepaul  and  Tibet. 
The  present  Manchu  dynasty  had  to  begin 
afresh  and  feel  its  way  overland  along  new  or 
forgotten  ground,  just  as  its  predecessors  had 
done.  The  first  distant  discoveries  were  made 
towards  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
when  the  Emperor  K'ang-hi  found  it  advisable 
to  march  as  far  as  the  Kerulon  and  the  Tola  in 
order  to  drive  back  a  Kalmuck  invasion  ;  his 
historian  truly  boasts  that  no  previous  emperor 
occupying  the  Chinese  throne  and  no  Chinese 
army  ever  went  so  far  west,  or  numbered  so  many 
as  30,000  men  conveyed  across  the  desert.     The 


A.D.  1700-1800]    SIR  AUREL  STEIN'S  ROAD       81 

son  and  grandson  of  this  excellent  monarch  saw 
that  it  was  indispensable  to  crush  the  Kalmuck 
power  :  they  proceeded  to  attack  them  first  at 
Kokonor  and  Lob  Nor  ;  then  to  advance  along 
the  North  Road  to  the  Purun-ki  river  and  the 
Tsaidam  ;  as  a  sequel  utterly  to  annihilate  the 
whole  Kalmuck  state,  to  annex  Cobdo,  Sungaria, 
and  in  the  end  even  the  Mahometan  states  of 
Little  Bokhara  (i.e.  Kashgaria).  The  Kalmucks 
retreated  on  one  occasion  from  Kokonor  by  a 
road  running  west  of  the  Kia-yiih  Pass  to  Hami, 
and  not  marked  on  most  maps.  They "^  were 
granted  trade  privileges  with  China  in  1739, 
and  also  had  the  privilege  of  going  to  Tibet  to 
"  boil  tea  "  ;  but  of  course  that  was  before  their 
power  was  broken.  At  present  there  seems  to 
be  no  long-distance  caravan  trade  along  the  direct 
roads  between  Tibet  and  Lob  Nor  across  the 
K'unlun  Mountains.  During  all  these  conquests 
the  Chinese  armies  always  kept  either  to  the 
northernmost  road  by  Uliassutai,  or  to  the 
North  (Sungaria)  Road,  or  the  two  branches  of 
the  South  (Kashgaria)  Road,  i.e.  to  the  main 
roads  ;  and  the  same  thing  may  be  said  of  Tso 
Tsung-t'ang's  reconquest  from  Yakub  Beg  in 
1877,  except  that  he  never  used  the  Uliassutai 
road  at  all  :  by-roads  and  cuts  across  the  desert 
were  only  occasionally  made  use  of  for  military 
surprises.  The  southern  branch  of  the  South 
Road  has  always  been  used  for  the  Khotan 
jade-stone  import  trade,  which  is  a  very  ancient 
one.  After  the  subjection  of  Kashgaria,  the 
Manchus  for  a  few  years  extended  their  influence 
over  Kokand,  Bokhara,  Shignan,  and  Badak- 
shan  ;  but  their  armies  never  penetrated  even 
temporarily  far  beyond  the  Pamirs.  There 
were  continuous  disputes  with  Kokand  as  to  the 
right  of  the  latter  to  tax  the  Kashmir  trade 
crossing  the  Sarikol  region  ;    but  China  supplied 


82  TRADE   ROUTES  [chap,  iv 

Kokand  with  tea  and  drugs,  and  was  thus  always 
able  to  put  pressure  upon  the  Usbeg  power  by 
stopping  this  important  trade. 

The  ordinary  Tibetan  tribute  route,  over 
which  thousands  of  men  and  animals  habitually 
travelled  to  and  from  Peking  in  huge  caravans, 
was  that  taken  by  the  Abbe  Hue  in  1834-5. 
He  followed  the  high-road  from  Dolon  Nor  to 
Chagan  Kuren,  near  Baotu ;  cut  across  the 
Yellow  River  and  a  corner  of  the  Ordos  Desert ; 
and  recrossed  it  at  Karahoto.  Thence  he  fol- 
lowed the  left  bank  and  the  Great  Wall  to  Sayang, 
Nien-po,  and  the  Kumbum  Monastery,  near 
Si-ning.  From  that  resting-place  he  started 
once  more  along  the  road  running  south  of 
Kokonor  to  the  sources  of  the  Yellow  River  ; 
crossed  the  Shuga  and  Bayen-kara  ranges,  then 
the  Murui-Usu,  and  on  to  Lhassa,  apparently 
by  the  same  road  the  Manchu  Nepaul  army 
took,  as  already  related. 

The  Nepaul  "  tribute "  (trading)  mission, 
which  still  periodically  visits  China,  invariably 
takes  the  post  road,  via  Shigatsz  and  Lhassa,  to 
Ta-tsien  Lu.  The  road  from  Yiin  Nan  to  Tibet, 
though  practicable,  is  too  rough  for  troops,  and 
is  therefore  deliberately  abandoned  by  the 
Manchus,  as  it  was  2,000  years  ago  by  Han  Wu 
Ti  :  still,  Prince  Henry  of  Orleans  some  twenty 
years  ago  managed  to  cross  the  extreme  head 
waters  of  the  Irrawaddy,  the  ultimate  sources  of 
which  have  since  been  accurately  placed  by 
Jacques  Bacot  and  others.  Westward  from 
Lhassa  to  Lari  there  is  a  post  road  ;  but  the 
Chinese  Resident  had  for  long  been  practically  a 
political  prisoner  at  Lhassa  ;  d  fortiori  no  Chinese 
trader  can  do  much  in  the  way  of  exploration 
farther  west.  Since  the  British  expedition  to 
Lhassa  of  1904,  the  Chinese  reconquest  of  Tibet, 
and  the  disorganisation  of  frontier  affairs  con- 


A.D.  1850-1900]     CHINA   TO   MECCA   ROUTES     83 

sequent  upon  the  fall  of  the  Manchu  dynasty, 
the  precise  status  of  Tibet  has  been  in  a  state  of 
"  suspended  animation." 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  what  route  is  usually 
followed  by  modern  Chinese  ^lussulmans  on 
their  way  to  Mecca.  In  1893  I  met  one  of  these 
pilgrims  at  Bhamo  ;  he  had  come  all  the  way 
from  Ho  Nan  province,  and  was  going  by  steamer 
to  Rangoon.  In  1841  a  Yiin  Nan  Mussulman, 
who  afterwards  became  prominent  in  the  Pan- 
thay  rebellion  as  "  Old  Papa,"  went  by  way  of 
Esmok  to  Kiang  Tung,  Legya,  and  Ava  (Man- 
dalay)  ;  thence  in  a  junk  laden  with  Yiin  Nan 
copper  to  Rangoon.  From  this  port  he  travelled 
by  steamer  to  Calcutta,  Ceylon,  Malabar, 
Socotra,  Aden,  and  Mocha  ;  thence  to  Jeddah. 
The  route  he  took  back  by  sailing  vessel  was 
ultimately  by  way  of  Acheen ;  but  he  was 
wrecked  on  the  way,  and  most  of  the  places  he 
called  at  are  not  at  all  identifiable  by  the  un- 
initiated. Then  he  went  to  Penang,  Malacca, 
Singapore,  Canton  (where  he  stayed  in  the  old 
mosque),  up  the  West  River  to  Nan-ning  and 
Peh-seh.  Peh-seh  is  now  the  great  trading 
centre  for  the  foot  traffic  between  Pakhoi,  Kwei 
Chou,  and  Yiin  Nan.  But  he  also  gives  us  a 
land  route,  which  is  exactly  that  of  2,000  years 
ago,  and  is  evidently  so  described  by  him  with 
the  intention  of  encouraging  the  Kan  Suh 
Mussulmans  to  do  their  religious  duty  ;  to  wit, 
the  Kia-yiih  Pass  to  Hami,  Turfan,  Aksu,  Ush, 
Kashgar,  Andijan,  Kokand,  Khodjand,  Samar- 
cand,  Bokhara,  Bagdad,  Aintab,  Aleppo, 
Damascus,  Jerusalem,  Cairo ;  or,  as  an  alter- 
native, Aintab,  Antioch,  Jaffa.  Instead  of  going 
from  Bokhara  to  Bagdad  (he  names  eight 
stations),  you  can  go  from  Bokhara  to  Balkh, 
Kabul,  Kandahar,  Kelat,  and  Bejda,  taking  ship 
at  Beyla.  The  late  Gabriel  Deveria  has  collected 
8 


84  TRADE  ROUTES  [chap,  iv 

these  and  many  other  interesting  details  con- 
cerning the  Chinese  Mussulmans. 

If  we  now  pass  on  to  Mongolia,  we  shall  find 
that  the  trade  of  north-west  concentrates  at  or 
near  Baotu,  at  the  north-east  corner  of  the 
Yellow  River  bend,  whence  the  ancient  high-road 
through  Kwei-hwa  Ch'eng  (Tenduc)  permits  of 
easy  travel  to  Dolonor  (Lama  Miao)  and  Kalgan. 
From  Kwei-hwa  runs  also  the  high-road  to 
Uliassutai  and  the  northernmost  route  to  the 
Far  West.  These  roads  (soon  to  be  railways) 
are  of  great  commercial  importance  to  the 
foreign  trade  of  Tientsin,  and  the  best  first-hand 
authority  on  the  subject  is  Rodney  Gilbert,  who 
has  "  roughed  it  "  by  boat,  cart,  and  camel. 

As  to  the  roads  into  Manchuria,  recent  re- 
searches prove  absolutely  that  the  mediaeval 
Chinese  envoys  to  the  Niichens  followed  the 
present  high-road  round  from  Peking,  through 
Shan-hai  Kwan,  Mukden,  Kirin  or  Ch'angch'un, 
to  Alchuk  and  Sansing.  So  with  the  modern 
Corean  road  from  Soul,  or  P'ing-yang,  by  way 
of  I-chou,  whence  either  via  Mukden  and  the 
Manchu  road,  or  via  the  Feng-hwang  road  and 
Kin-chou,  where  the  latter  joins  the  former  : 
these  were  the  roads  of  ancient  times.  The 
Kitan  roads  I  have  been  over,  for  the  most  part, 
myself ;  they  are  simply  the  high-roads  from 
Peking  through  the  various  passes  of  the  Great 
Wall,  and  to  this  day  the  caravans  of  laden 
camels  or  mules,  the  droves  of  horses,  the  herds 
and  flocks  driven  in  for  sale  may  be  seen  coming 
through  in  the  winter  season  exactly  as  they 
came  2,000  years  ago.  Of  course  the  Peking- 
Mukden  and  Peking-Kalgan  railways  have  revo- 
lutionised part  at  least  of  the  traffic,  and  no 
doubt  before  long  the  Kalgan  railway  will  be 
carried  on  to  Urga  and  Kiachta.  The  present 
Kalgan  and  Kiachta  road  used  by  the  Russians 


B.C.100-A.D.1900]  ROADS  THROUGH  TONQUIX    85 

was  not  the  one  preferred  by  them  in  the  seven- 
teenth century.  They  used  to  go  from  Tsuru- 
haitu  on  the  lliver  Argun,  across  the  River 
Hailar  and  the  Hingan  Range,  down  the  Yall 
Valley  to  the  Nonni ;  whence  south-west  through 
the  steppes  and  mountainous  borderland  of  south- 
east Mongolia  to  the  Hi-feng  K'ou  (pass)  in  the 
Great  Wall.  Between  Tsitsihar  on  the  Nonni 
and  Peking,  travellers  crossed  Cholin-u-yc  and 
Mokhoi  to  the  rivers  Toro  and  Shara  Muren, 
with  its  tributary  the  Loha. 

The  same  thing  may  be  said  of  the  Tonquin 
frontier  ;  the  roads  have  always  been  the  present 
ones ;  the  only  novelty  being  that  the  Red 
River  route  from  Yun  Nan  past  Lao-kai  to 
Hanoi  never  existed  in  practice,  even  if  known 
in  theory,  as  a  continuous  road,  until  twenty- 
five  years  ago,  when  Jean  Dupuis  effectively 
discovered  it.  Even  Haiphong  had  no  existence 
as  a  port.  Now  we  have  a  continuous  railway 
from  the  port,  via  Hanoi  and  Lao-kai  to  Yiin 
Nan  city.  The  Annamese  formerly  discouraged 
trade  with  China,  when  and  for  the  same  reasons 
the  Japanese  did  :  first,  on  account  of  pirate 
complications ;  secondly,  from  the  dread  of 
opium  importations. 

The  total  result  of  these  laborious  inquiries 
into  trade  routes  is,  after  all,  a  simple  conclusion. 
With  one  or  two  exceptions,  the  beaten  tracks 
are  exactly  the  same  now  as  they  were  2,000 
years  ago,  both  by  land  and  by  sea.  The  marts, 
with  similar  rare  exceptions,  are  either  the  old 
marts,  or  are  near  them,  or  have  a  special 
traceable  reason  for  their  modified  existence. 
Even  the  peoples  are  the  same  peoples,  mixed 
or  displaced  here  and  there  by  conquests, 
famines,  or  other  cataclysms.  Tea,  known,  as  we 
have  seen,  to  the  earliest  Arab  visitors,  became  a 
new  export  when  cotton  became  a  new  import  : 


86  TRADE   ROUTES  [chap,  iv 

it  was  first  taxed  in  the  eighth  century.  Cheap 
freights  for  heavy  commodities  in  huge  ships 
have  displaced  certain  exchanges ;  as,  for 
instance,  iron,  which  from  being  an  export  is 
now  an  import  :  thousands  of  tons  of  old  horse- 
shoes twenty  years  ago  did,  and  possibly  still 
do  go  out  as  ballast,  at  low  freights.  The  great 
novelty  and  the  great  economic  curse  to  China 
has  been  opium,  which  now  •  happily  ceases  in 
great  measure  to  work  its  evil  course  ;  but  it  is 
not  fair  to  charge  upon  ourselves  the  whole 
blam.e  for  this,  nor  do  the  Chinese  historians 
attempt  to  do  so  :  on  the  other  hand,  we  have 
not  been  ungenerous  in  our  efforts  to  aid  China 
in  suppressing  the  evil  within  the  past  decade. 
The  way  a  man  walks  from  one  village  to 
another  is  a  road  ;  if  the  walk  extends  to  fifty 
villages,  and  a  pack-mule  accompanies  the  man, 
it  becomes  a  great  road  ;  if  supplied  with  post- 
stations  for  man  and  caravan,  it  is  a  high-road. 
People  follow  their  noses  by  land,  the  compass 
by  sea  (or  headlands  if  they  do  not  understand 
the  compass),  and  bones  in  the  desert ;  all  this 
now  in  1917  exactly  as  they  did  200  B.C.  In 
other  words,  commercial  history  shows  us 
nothing  more  than  that  with  the  same  old 
materials  we  adapt  ourselves  to  fortuitous  cir- 
cumstances exactly  as  our  ancestors  did  before 
us.  During  the  past  sixty  years  these  modifying 
circumstances  have  been  of  unusual  gravity, 
and  for  that  reason  have  caused  unusual  com- 
motion^— they  are  steam,  electricity,  coal,  petro- 
leum ;  and  now  last  of  all  wireless  talk,  aerial 
and  submarine  locomotion  ;  in  a  word,  "  pro- 
gress." It  appears  to  me  doubtful  if  we  Euro- 
peans are  a  whit  happier  for  "  progress  "  ;  it 
has  certainly  not  had  cheerful  results  so  far 
for  the  Chinese  i — two  dozen  words  originally 
written  in  1900,  truer  than  ever  now  in  1917. 


CHAPTER    V 

ARRIVAL    OF   EUROPEANS 

The  first  European  missionary  who  attempted 
to  reach  China  by  sea  was  St.  Francis  Xavier, 
and  the  first  great  city  the  Portuguese  had 
definitely  heard  of  was  Canton  ;  but  St.  Francis 
died,  in  1552,  on  his  way  thither,  at  the  port  of 
a  small  island  called  Shang-ch'uan,  lying  to  the 
south-west  of  Macao.  The  name  was  soon  cor- 
rupted into  Sanciano,  or  Saint  John,  which  it 
now  bears  :  the  Macao  Portuguese  still  make  an 
annual  pilgrimage  to  this  place.  Macao  was 
founded  shortly  afterwards,  but  it  was  not 
until  1582  that  the  Jesuits  Ruggieri  and  Pasio 
actually  succeeded  in  reaching  Canton  itself  ; 
and  they  subsequently  Avent  on  to  the  then 
provincial  capital  of  Chao-k'ing,  locally  pro- 
nounced Shiu-heng.  Here  they  were  joined  in 
the  following  year  by  the  Italian,  Matthew  Ricci, 
who  after  various  vicissitudes  reached  Peking 
with  one  or  two  companions  in  1601.  Now  it 
was  that  the  Chinese  had  the  opportunity  for 
the  first  time  of  com.paring  notes  upon  the 
subject  of  the  mysterious  Franks  and  the  semi- 
mythical  country  of  Ta-ts'in,  which  up  to  that 
date  had  been  as  much  a  puzzle  to  them  as 
Serica  and  the  Seres  had  been  to  the  denizens 
of  the  West.  The  condition  of  their  own  prac- 
tical knowledge  when  Ricci  arrived  was  as 
follows  :■ — 

87 


88  ARRIVAL  OF  EUROPEANS       [chap,  v 

In  1517  a  "  Fulangki  "  fleet  had  appeared  at 
St.  John's  Island,  which  was  then  the  entrepot 
of  trade  between  Canton  and  Malacca.  Why 
the  Portuguese^ — for  they  it  was,  under  Peres 
de  Andrade's  command^ — were  introduced  into 
China  by  this  name  we  can  only  guess  ;  prob- 
ably because,  as  with  the  old  Fulin,  the  already 
established  Arabs  had  to  explain  to  the  Chinese 
who  they  were.  They  sent  apparently  to  Canton 
or  Chao-k'ing  a  Ka-pi-tan  Mo  (Capitao  do  Mar) 
with  tribute  in  1518,  and  then  first  was  their 
name  of  "  Frank "  officially  recorded  :  the 
word  "  Portugal  "  was  afterwards  used,  but  it 
never  seems  to  have  quite  "  caught  on,"  though 
the  "  Po-tu-ki  man  "  of  Macao  is  now  familiar 
to  us  all.  Naturally  the  appearance  of  these 
strangers  at  Canton,  to  which  place  Andrade 
shortly  afterwards  forced  his  way,  created  great 
commotion  in  official  circles,  especially  as  other 
Portuguese  ships  had  meanwhile  visited  Ts'uan- 
chow,  and  had  exhibited  considerable  violence 
and  asperity  in  their  dealings  with  the  various 
trading  people  along  the  coasts.  However,  a 
Portuguese  mission,  it  is  not  quite  clear  under 
whom,  got  to  Peking  in  1520,  and  an  attempt 
was  then  made  by  the  Chinese  Government  to 
force  the  Envoy  to  restore  Malacca  to  its  rightful 
king,  who  was  nominally  a  tributary  of  China. 
At  least  one  of  the  members  of  the  mission  was 
executed  at  Peking,  and  the  Envoy  himself  is 
supposed  to  have  perished  in  prison  at  Canton, 
back  to  which  place  he  was  ignominiously 
escorted.  This  fiasco  naturally  led  to  hostilities, 
during  which  the  large  Portuguese  cannon  used 
in  the  sea-fights  attracted  considerable  attention, 
and  soon  acquired  the  name  of  "  Franks  "  too, 
which  in  some  parts  of  China  is  still  the  case 
even  to  this  day.  The  Chinese  seem  to  have 
subsequently  availed  themselves  of  the  assist- 


A.D.  1500-1700]  EARLY  PORTUGUESE  DOINGS    89 

ance  of  the  Portuguese,  and  of  these  wonderful 
guns,  to  punish  their  own  pirates  :  trade  had 
meanwhile  been  temporarily  transferred  to  the 
coast  town  of  Tien-peh  (Tin-pak),  west  of  St. 
John's,  but  now  (1534-7)  the  Portuguese  were 
allowed  by  some  official  who  had  been  judiciously 
bribed  to  occupy  Macao  as  a  commercial  depot ; 
and  from  that  day  to  this  they  have  never  been 
ousted  from  it,  though  their  right  to  possess  it 
was  never  put  on  a  legal  footing  until  some 
thirty  years  ago  (1887).  But  they  had  also  for 
a  time  other  settlements  at  Ningpo  and  Ts'iian- 
chow,  the  former  of  which  was  destroyed  in 
1549,  probably  at  the  time  the  piratical  Mendez 
Pinto  was  there.  Pinto  had  just  escaped  from 
captivity  in  Mongolia,  and  had  returned  to 
Ningpo  from  a  visit  to  Japan,  which  country  he 
was  the  first  white  man  to  see.  There  was  also 
some  fighting  at  and  near  Ts'iian-chow,  but  both 
the  Chinese  and  the  Portuguese  accounts  leave 
confused  impressions,  and  it  is  probable  that 
the  Portuguese  never  had  so  much  to  do  with 
that  port  as  the  Spaniards. 

For  some  years  after  this  the  severest  possible 
restrictions  were  placed  upon  Chinese  leaving 
their  country  for  purposes  of  trade,  but  in  1567 
the  Governor  of  Fuh  Kien  obtained  their 
removal  :  in  any  case  trade  at  Macao  went  on 
without  a  break.  In  the  main  it  appears  the 
Chinese  were  unable  or  unwilling  to  prevent  the 
fortification  of  Macao  :  moreover  the  Dutch  and 
the  Japanese  were  beginning  to  give  serious 
trouble,  and  it  was  therefore  thought  prudent 
to  conciliate  the  Portuguese.  Their  trade  was 
limited  to  twenty-five  ships  a  year.  In  1667  a 
mission  was  sent  from  Goa  to  complain  about 
obstructions  to  trade,  and  in  1710-27  the  King 
of  Portugal  took  prominent  part  in  the  Emperor's 
academic   dispute  with  the   Popes ;     but   since 


90  ARRIVAL   OF   EUROPEANS       [chap,  v 

the  last  mission  to  Peking  in  1753  the  Portuguese 
have  until  our  own  days  had  very  little  inter- 
course with  official  China.  Up  to  the  time  of 
Ricci's  arrival  it  was  not  quite  understood  what 
country  Portugal  really  was  ;  the  very  name 
was  not  heard  in  China  till  1564  ;  and  even  now 
the  vague  name  of  "  Western  Ocean  "  men  is 
usually  employed  by  old  popular  habit  to  spe- 
cially designate  the  Portuguese, — except,  as  ex- 
plained, in  "  pidjin  English  "  conversation.  The 
physique  as  well  as  the  moral  of  the  mixed  race 
now  in  occupation  of  Macao  is  considerably 
below  that  of  pure  Portuguese,  and  even  below 
that  of  the  pure  Chinese.  The  trade  of  the  place 
has  dwindled  into  insignificance. 

From  the  Portuguese  we  pass  to  the  Spaniards. 
In  the  year  1576  the  Chinese,  in  their  pursuit 
of  certain  Japanese  and  Chinese  pirates  who  had 
been  hovering  about  Formosa,  came  across  some 
more  Franks  in  Manila,  where  there  had  already 
been  large  settlements  of  Fuh  Kien  traders  long 
before  the  Spaniards  ever  appeared  in  those  seas. 
A  Mexican  priest  who  had  lived  there,  writing 
in  1638,  said  their  junks  came  from  Ocho  (Foo- 
chow),  Chincheo  (Ts'iian-chow),  and  Amoy, 
and  always  went  back  in  ballast,  carrying  only 
silver.  They  paid  a  duty  of  3  per  cent,  upon 
all  imports,  and  there  were  no  exports  :  the 
group  was  nominally  annexed  in  1565.  In  1575 
two  Spanish  Augustines  had  visited  Foochow 
and  Canton  on  a  political  mission  from  Manila. 
The  Chinese  may  well  be  excused  for  having 
confused  the  Portuguese  with  the  Spaniards 
during  the  negotiations  which  took  place  at 
Manila  relative  to  the  treatment  of  Fuh  Kien 
merchants  there,  for  in  1580  Philip  II.  annexed 
Portugal,  which  remained  for  over  half  a  century 
one  realm  with  Spain.  Manila,  so  called  from 
a  river  in  Luzon,  was  taken  in  1571,  and  the 


A.D.  lGOO-1900]      THE    FIRST    SPANIARDS  91 

whole  group  of  islands  was  styled  "  The  Philip- 
pines "    in   honour   of  the   Spanish   king.     The 
Chinese  then  used  no  other  word  than  the  old 
native  name  of  Luzon  ;    nor  do  they  now.     It 
appears  that  some  of  the  speculative  Chinese, 
evidently  misled  by  the  enormous  importation 
of  silver  from   Mexico,    and  the  fact  that   the 
Spaniards  never  gave  anything  but  silver  in  ex- 
change for  the*  multifarious  Chinese  produce  at 
last  imported,  got  into  their  heads  a  notion  that 
gold  and  silver  might  be  obtained  in  Manila  for 
the  mere  picking  of  it  up.     Official  personages 
were  despatched  at  their  instigation  from  China 
to  make  inquiry  :   the  Spaniards  grew  suspicions 
that  ideas  of  conquest  were  being  entertained, 
and  considerable  ill-feeling  was  thus  engendered, 
which    culminated     in    a    fearful     unreasoning 
massacre.     This   seems  to  have  been  in   1603  ; 
nearly  the   whole  of  the   Chinese  were   put   to 
the  sword,  and  even  those  who  escaped  death 
were    sent    to   the   galleys.     Both   Chinese   and 
Spanish  accounts  agree,  however,  in  stating  that 
junks  and  traders    soon  began  to  arrive  again 
as  if  nothing  had  happened.     But  a  limit  was 
thereafter   placed   upon   their   numbers   by   the 
Spaniards,  and  each  man  had  to  pay  a  poll-tax 
of  eight  dollars.     Another  massacre  took  place 
in  1662,  when  the  Chinese  pirate  Koxinga,  who 
had    just    ejected    the    Dutch    from    Formosa, 
threatened  to  come  over  and  also  take  ^Manila. 
Since  then  the  Chinese  Government,  until  quite 
recent    years,    seems    to    have    almost    entirely 
ignored  the  place  ;     and  their  subjects,   chiefly 
from  the  AmxOy  region,  have  thriven  fairly  well 
under  the  strict  but  narrow  Spanish  rule.     The 
total  population  of  the  whole  group  does  not  fall 
far  short  of  8,000,000,  and,  as  everyone  knows, 
the  Americans  are  now  (since  1899)  in  possession. 
The  main  exports  are  sugar,  tobacco,  and  hemp. 


92  ARRIVAL   OF  EUROPEANS       [chap,  v 

It  should  perhaps  be  mentioned  that  in  1762 
Manila  was  occupied  by  the  English,  but  soon 
surrendered  on  payment  of  a  ransom. 

The  Dutch  first  opened  commercial  relations 
with  the  Spice  Islands,  Bantam  (near  Batavia) 
and  Acheen  in  1598-1600.  Coffee  was  first 
brought  into  Europe  from  Arabia  in  1580,  and 
was  soon  in  great  demand,  so  the  Dutch  sent  an 
agent  to  Mocha  with  a  view  to  cultivating  coffee 
in  Java.  In  1610  they  extended  their  trading 
relations  to  Hirado,  in  Japan  :  but  in  1640  they 
were  compelled  to  retire,  and  were  confined  to 
the  tiny  island  of  Decima — a  mere  quay — in 
Nagasaki  Bay.  It  was  about  this  period  that 
the  Chinese  first  heard  of  the  existence  of  the 
Dutch  :  "  Sailing  in  great  ships  and  carrying 
huge  guns,  they  went  straight  for  Luzon  (1601), 
but  the  Luzon  men  repelled  them,  on  which 
they  turned  for  Macao."  Just  after  the  Japanese 
and  Chinese  pirates  had  been  driven  out  of 
Kilung  (whence  the  latter  fled  to  Borneo),  some 
Chinese  fishing  boats  drifted  to  Formosa,  and 
then  traders  began  to  settle  there.  The  Dutch 
were  not  long  in  discovering  this  promising 
commerce.  In  1603-4  they  succeeded,  with  the 
connivance  of  certain  Chinese  traders,  in  effect- 
ing a  landing  in  the  Pescadore  group  of  islands, 
whence  they  were  ejected  in  1624  :  a  number 
of  them  were  carried  captive  to  Peking.  In 
consequence  of  these  events,  the  Chinese  Govern- 
ment encouraged  their  people  to  emigrate  to 
Formosa,  and  the  Dutch,  in  1634,  also  went 
on  to  found  settlements  in  T'ai-wan  (South  For- 
mosa). The  oldest  name  for  the  island  seems 
to  be  "  Mount  Kilung,"  from  a  headland  on  the 
north  promontory,  and  Kilung  is  still  the  name 
of  a  port  in  the  extreme  north  ;  but  no  serious 
attention  appears  to  have  been  paid  to  it  by 
junkmasters  until  the  fifteenth  century,   when 


A.D.  1660-1900]     VICISSITUDES   OF   FORMOSA    93 

Chinese  traders  began  to  establish  their  stations 
at  various  suitable  spots  in  the  island.  Shortly- 
after  their  exploit  with  the  King  of  Loochoo,  as 
narrated  on  page  40,  the  Japanese  endeavoured 
to  form  a  colony  in  Formosa,  and  had  to  contest 
possession  with  the  Dutch  ;  but  the  Dutch  were 
ultimately  driven  out  in  1662  by  Koxinga,  who 
was  himself  half  a  Japanese :  his  father,  a 
baptized  Christian  named  Nicholas,  had  visited 
both  Manila  and  Japan,  where  he  had  married 
a  native  woman,  Koxinga's  mother.  It  may 
be  explained  .that  Koxinga  is  merely  the  Portu- 
guese form  of  the  Chinese  words  Kwok-sing-ya, 
or  "  the  gentleman  with  the  reigning  surname," 
because  a  Chinese  prince,  then  a  fugitive  in  the 
south  from  the  triumphant  arms  of  the  Manchus, 
had  caused  to  be  conferred  on  him,  in  considera- 
tion of  his  heroic  patriotism,  the  family  name  of 
the  Ming  dynasty.  In  1665  a  Dutch  mission  under 
Van  Hoorn  visited  Peking,  and  the  local  govern- 
ment of  Full  Kien  seems  to  have  sought  Dutch 
assistance  about  this  time  in  connection  with 
Formosa  ai'iairs.  It  was  not  until  1683  that  the 
Manchus  succeeded  in  obtaining  from  the 
Koxinga  family,  with  Dutch  assistance,  a  renun- 
ciation of  their  hereditary  rights  in  Formosa  ; 
and  subsequent  to  that  date  (until  its  cession  to 
Japan  in  1895)  the  island  was  incorporated  in 
the  Manchu  empire  as  part  of  Fuh  Kien. 

Chinese  history  gives  a  fairly  intelligible  and 
accurate  account  of  the  struggle  between 
Japanese,  Franks,  and  Red  Hairs,  but  after  their 
expulsion  from  Formosa  the  Dutch  are  not  so 
much  heard  of  in  the  China  seas  as  other  Euro- 
pean nations.  According  to  the  arrangement 
which  the  Chinese  say  was  made  by  a  Dutch 
mission  to  Peking  in  1656,  Flolland  had  to  send 
tribute  to  the  Manchu  court  once  every  eight 
years.     A    mission    under    Titsingh    and    Van 


94  ARRIVAL  OF   EUROPEANS       [chap,  v 

Braam  visited  the  Chinese  capital  in  1793,  and 
since  then  Holland  appears  to  have  gone  quietly 
about  her  own  business  in  the  Southern  Archi- 
pelago, without  troubling  herself  with  Manchu 
official  relations  at  all ;  Chinese  traders  mean- 
while managed  to  thrive  under  the  strict  and 
discriminating  rule  of  the  Hollanders.  And  so 
things  went  on,  their  Canton  factory  of  course 
in  full  swing,  until  the  Dutch  treaty  of  1863  was 
concluded  :  this  was  after  the  second  Chinese 
war,  and  the  occupation  of  Peking  by  the 
English  and  French.  But  even  after  this  the 
Dutch  held  aloof,  and  probably  they  would 
never  have  sent  a  minister  to  Peking  at  all,  had 
they  not  desired  to  obtain  a  liberal  supply  of 
coolies  for  Sumatra.  The  Chinese  in  Java  and 
other  Dutch  colonies  have  not  quite  so  much 
freedom  as  in  Hongkong  or  Singapore  ;  but  they 
are  treated  with  sagacity  as  well  as  firmness, 
and  the  Dutch,  who  watch  them  carefully,  and 
nip  any  nascent  rising  or  independent  action  in 
the  early  bud,  know  well  how  to  utilise  to  their 
own  advantage  the  capacity  of  the  Chinese  for 
self-government  and  commercial  organisation. 
This  fact  began  to  touch  Chinese  pride  after  the 
"  Boxer "  war,  and,  following  many  years  of 
patient  negotiation,  China  at  last  gained  her 
main  point,  which  was  to  place  her  nationals  in 
the  Dutch  islands  under  the  "  observation  "  at 
least  of  Chinese  consuls. 

All  this,  however,  relates  to  the  Dutch  of 
to-day,  from  whom  we  must  now  turn  to  pick 
up  the  thread  of  our  narrative  of  the  earlier 
arrivals  in  China.  Pacci  died  in  1610,  and  was 
therefore  not  called  on  to  explain  to  the  Chinese 
the  concrete  existence  of  any  European  nations 
except  the  Franks,  the  Italians,  and  the  Dutch. 
But  there  is  a  chapter  in  the  Ming  history  w^hich 
states  that,  according  to  the  Western  men  who 


A.D.  1530-1687]     THE  JESUITS   AT   PEKING       95 

arrived  between  1573  and  1617,  their  "  Lord  of 
Heaven  "   was  born  in  Judaea,   or  the  ancient 
Ta-ts'in.     Ricci  is  also  specifically  said  to  have 
made  for  the  Chinese  a  map  of  Europe,  and  to 
have  explained  to  them  the  division  of  the  world 
into  five  great  continents.     His  statements  were 
received  with  considerable  incredulity,  but  he  was, 
notwithstanding,  kindly  treated  by  the  Emperor. 
After  Ricci's   death,    Pantoja,    Rho,  Schaal  (or 
Schall),  and  other  distinguished  Jesuits  succeeded 
to   his   influence ;     they    rendered    considerable 
service  to  the  Chinese  in  the  manufacture  of  guns, 
the  calculations  of  eclipses,  and  matters  of  science 
generally.     Adam  Schaal  was  in  Peking  shortly 
after  the  Manchus  took  possession  ;    his  appeal 
to  their  clemency  was  well  received,  and  he  was 
appointed  President  of  the  Astronomical  Board 
by   the   prudent   Manchus,   who   were   only   too 
anxious  to  avail  themselves  of  talent,  wherever 
found.     His    successor,    Verbiest,    assisted    the 
Manchu  commanders  during  the  Chinese  satrap 
rebellions  to  make  large  cannon  for  use  in  the 
field,   and  the  Emperor  K'ang-hi  even  showed 
himself  personally  very   well   disposed  towards 
Christianity.     Unfortunately,  religious  intrigues 
with  his  own  sons,  and  disputes  between  rival 
missionary  societies  led  to  an  untimely  difference 
of  opinion  upon  the  subject  of  ancestor  worship 
between  the  Emperor  and  the  Pope,  since  which 
time  politics  have  been  inextricably  mixed  up 
with  Western  religion  in  China,  and  persecutions 
never   entirely   ceased   so   long   as   the   Manchu 
dynasty  existed. 

The  first  English  arrivals  came  shortly  after 
the  Dutch.  According  to  one  account  cited  by 
Chinese  writers.  Queen  Elizabeth  of  England 
sent  a  letter  and  presents  to  China  in  1596,  but 
the  ships  of  the  mission  were  wrecked  in  a  storm. 
In  1637  five  English  ships  are  stated  to  have 


96  ARRIVAL  OF  EUROPEANS       [chap,  v 

come  from  Sumatra  to  Canton,  and  to  have  com- 
menced hostilities  there,  owing  to  the  Portu- 
guese having  intrigued  so  as  indirectly  to  force 
the  local  authorities  to  obstruct  the  new-comers' 
trade  ;  but,  it  is  added,  they  surrendered  the 
fort  they  had  taken,  on  being  allowed  to  dispose 
of  their  cargoes.  However,  in  both  cases  the 
strangers  were,  if  they  really  did  come,  mistaken 
for  Dutchmen,  whose  own  origin  again  was  only 
imperfectly  understood  at  that  period.  In 
Koxinga's  time  the  English  are  believed  to  have 
had  dealings  at  Amoy ;  this  is  not  unlikely, 
for  they  were  certainly  there  in  1730,  when  their 
trade  was  stopped  ;  at  all  events,  the  East  India 
Company  established,  and  for  a  few  years  kept 
up  a  factory  at  the  Chusan  Islands  near  Ningpo 
somewhere  towards  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century.^  It  is  certain  that  already  some  time 
before  that,  in  1684,  a  foothold  had  been 
obtained  at  Canton  ;  indeed,  the  Chinese  state 
that  in  1685  foreign  commerce  had  been  officially 
authorised  at  Macao,  Chang-chou  (Zaitun), 
Ningpo,  and  some  place  near  Shanghai.  There 
were  several  other  attempts  made  during  the 
eighteenth  century  to  trade  at  Ningpo  and 
Tientsin  ;  but  practically  all  legitimate  foreign 
commerce,  English  and  otherwise,  w^as  confined 
to  Canton,  until  the  first  war  with  England 
broke  out  in  1840,  in  consequence  of  a  misunder- 
standing in  connection  with  the  opium  trade, 
and  about  the  price  to  be  paid  for  opium  sur- 
rendered by  us.  Up  to  the  year  1765  the 
import  of  opium,  which  was  at  first  regarded  in 
the  light  of  a  medicinal  drug,  had  never  exceeded 
200  chests  ;  but  in  1796  it  was  entirely  pro- 
hibited,   on   account   of  the   rapidly  increasing 

^  The  correspondence  of  Catchpoole,  who  was  there  in  1701—2, 
was  about  twenty  years  ago  published  by  M.  Henri  Cordier  in 
the  Revue  de  V  Extreme-Orient. 


A.D.  1795-1906]      SO-CALLED  "  OPIUM  WAR  "     97 

number  of  smokers.  In  1793  Lord  Macartney 
had  audiences  with  the  Emperor  at  Jeliol, 
but  opium  was  apparently  not  one  of  the  sub- 
jects specially  discussed/  It  seems  the  British 
Superintendent  in  1795  ofi'ered  China  some 
assistance  against  revolted  Nepaul.^  By  1820 
the  import  of  opium  had  steadily  risen  to  4,000 
chests,  and  the  Chinese  Government  began  to 
feel  justly  alarmed,  both  at  the  enormous  drain 
of  silver  from  the  country,  and  at  the  prospect 
of  debauching  the  population.  In  1821  the 
opium  hulks  were  driven  away  to  the  Ling-ting 
Islands,  and  in  1838  severely  repressive  measures 
were  begun.  The  whole  melancholy  story  of 
the  so-called  "  Opium  War  "  has  been  frequently 
told,  and  I  have  myself  published  a  precis  trans- 
lation of  the  best  connected  Chinese  account  of 
it.  It  is  distinctly  admitted  that  it  was  the 
stoppage  of  trade,  and  not  the  destruction  of 
opium,  that  caused  the  war ;  also  that  the 
Emperor  when  the  war  was  over  voluntarily 
conceded  the  right  of  all  but  officials  to  smoke 
the  drug.  It  is  unquestionable  that  the  smoking 
of  opium  does  a  great  deal  of  physical  harm, 
and  causes  a  vast  waste  of  money  and  energy  ; 
but  even  the  Chinese  admit  that  the  initial 
responsibility  for  its  use  by  smokers  was  as  much 
theirs  as  ours  ;  and  in  any  case  they  had  during 
a  whole  generation  deliberately  extended  the 
evil  by  allowing  the  undisguised  cultivation  of 
the  poppy  on  a  wholesale  scale  in  China  itself. 
Indian  opium  in  1900  did  not  represent  one 
quarter  of  the  total  consumption  ;  since  1906, 
however,  energetic  steps  have  been  taken  to  rid 
the  country  of  the  curse. 

^  I  published  the  Emperor's  amusing  letters  to  King  George  III. 
in  the  Nineteenth  Century  for  July,  1896. 

^  An  official  account  of  Lord  Amherst's  abortive  mission  in 
1816  appears  in  the  Chinese  Recorder  for  1898. 


98  ARRIVAL   OF  EUROPEANS       [chap,  v 

After  the  first  war,  which  secured,  in  addition 
to  Canton,  the  further  opening  to  trade  of 
Shanghai,  Ningpo,  Foochow,  and  Amoy  as  treaty 
ports  to  all  the  world,  besides  the  cession  of 
Hongkong  to  Great  Britain,  the  chief  points  of 
international  friction  were  usually  found  to  be 
in  connection  with  the  contested  claim  of  British 
traders  to  reside  within  the  walls  of  Canton. 
In  1846  a  fine  junk  was  smuggled  out  of  the 
river,  taken  by  Captain  Kellet,  R.N.,  round  the 
Cape  to  America  and  England,  and  exhibited  in 
the  East  India  Dock  two  years  later.  In  1856 
the  Viceroy  Yeh  categorically  refused  to  admit 
the  English  into  the  city,  on  the  pretext  that 
Governor  Bonham  had  formally  abandoned  the 
claim  in  1849.  These  strained  relations  led 
gradually  and  indirectly  up  to  the  burning  of 
the  "  Thirteen  Hongs,"  and  to  the  second  war, 
in  which  the  French  also  took  part,  and  which 
culminated  in  the  destruction  of  the  Emperor's 
Summer  Palace  some  miles  beyond  the  metro- 
polis, and  the  opening  of  Peking  itself  to  the 
diplomatic  representatives  of  European  powers 
generally.  The  Treaty  of  Tientsin  and  the 
Peking  Convention  which  followed  it  opened  a 
number  of  new  coast  ports  (Newchwang,  Tient- 
sin, Chefoo,  Swatow)  to  foreign  trade,  besides 
certain  places  on  the  River  Yang-tsze  (Hankow, 
Kewkiang,  Chinkiang),  two  markets  in  the 
islands  of  Formosa  (T'aiwan,  Tamsui),  and 
Hainan  (Hoihow)  :  this  last,  however,  was  not 
actually  utilised  until  1876.  Russia  took  advan- 
tage of  the  occasion  to  extend  her  Ussuri  terri- 
tory at  the  expense  of  Manchuria,  and  most  of 
the  other  European  powers  hastened  to  secure 
to  themselves  by  separate  treaty  the  same  com- 
mercial and  religious  advantages  as  those 
obtained  by  England  and  France,  as  will  be 
recorded  in  detail  under  separate  heads.     Mis- 


A.D.  1860-1875]      TREATIES  WITH  CHINA  99 

sionary  enterprise  was  placed  by  these  treaties 
upon  an  entirely  new  footing,  and  instead  of 
being  a  dangerous  occupation,  in  which  the  un- 
protected priest  carried  his  life  in  his  hands  as  a 
guarantee  for  his  own  prudence  and  moderation, 
it  became  a  comparatively  comfortable  and  safe 
distraction,  combining  the  charm  of  agreeable 
travel  in  new  lands  with  a  reasonable  certainty 
of  consular  protection.  It  is  only  fair,  however, 
to  add  that  some  societies,  as,  for  instance,  the 
Jesuits  and  the  China  Inland  Mission,  have  con- 
sistently done  their  best  to  avoid  the  doubtful 
advantage  of  consular  interference. 

We  shall  towards  the  end  of  the  chapter  take 
up  in  turn  each  nation  as  affected  by  modern 
treaties.  Meantime  we  may  remark  that  from 
1860  to  1870  England  was  unmistakably  the 
sole  influential  power  at  Peking, — perhaps  with 
Russia,  on  account  of  her  land  frontiers  and  her 
consequentproximity,  as  a  good  second;  but  after- 
wards Japan  began  to  work  her  way  ominously  to 
the  front ;  whilst,  after  the  Franco-German  War, 
the  inoffensive  Prussia  blossomed  into  a  threat- 
ening state  called  "  Te-i-ch'i  "  (Deutsch,  or  Ger- 
many) and  proportionately  increased  the  scale 
and  pretensions  of  her  commercial  and  diplo- 
matic representation  in  the  Far  East,  culminating 
in  her  military  direction  of  the  Great  Powers  in 
the  "  Boxer  "  war  of  1900.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
defeat  of  France  deprived  her  of  the  opportunity 
of  avenging  in  an  adequate  manner  the  massacre 
of  French  officials  and  other  subjects  at  Tientsin 
in  1870  ;  and  thus  the  influence  of  France  fell 
almost  to  zero  for  some  years.  Then  came  the 
suspicious  m.urder  of  Mr.  Margary,  a  British 
consular  officer  conducting  an  Anglo-Indian 
expedition  over  the  Burmese  frontier  into  Yiin 
Nan  ;  the  futile  mission  of  inquiry  under  Mr. 
Grosvenor  ;  and  the  prolonged  diplomatic  dis- 
9 


loo  ARRIVAL  OF  EUROPEANS       [chap,  v 

cussion  which  led  to  the  Chefoo  Convention  of 
1876.  The  immediate  results  were  the  opening 
to  trade  of  more  ports  (Wenchow,  Pakhoi)  on 
the  coast,  and  more  places  on  the  Yang-tsze 
(Ich'ang,  Wuhu),  together  with  certain  stipula- 
tions concerning  the  opium  trade,  and  the 
establishment  of  permanent  Chinese  Legations 
in  Europe,  America,  and  Japan.  In  1886  these 
stipulations  ripened  into  what  is  called  the  Opium 
Convention,  practically  arranging,  on  the  one 
hand,  for  the  checking  of  a  further  increase  in 
the  Indian  import,  and  on  the  other  for  the 
assistance  of  the  Hongkong  Government  in 
securing  to  China,  under  cheap  conditions,  an 
enhanced  import  duty  on  that  article  ;  but  on 
the  understanding  that  there  was  to  be  no  further 
charge  of  any  kind  in  the  interior  of  China. 
Another  open  clause  in  the  Chefoo  Convention 
took  the  ultimate  form  of  the  Chungking 
Agreement  of  1890,  by  which  foreign  com- 
merce obtained  direct  admission  into  the  heart 
of  Sz  Ch'wan.  The  Sikkim  Convention  of  the 
same  year  recognised  in  principle  the  right  of 
British  India  to  trade  with  Tibet,  provided 
for  by  a  separate  article  in  the  Chefoo  Con- 
vention. 

When  Upper  Burma  was  taken,  the  British 
Government  in  its  haste  to  get  rid  of  Chinese 
objections  had,  or  rather  its  representative  had, 
somewhat  weakly  accepted  a  stipulation  about 
a  mission  from  Burma  being  sent  with  presents 
at  fixed  intervals  under  British  supervision ; 
this  was  by  way  of  recognition  of  China's  de  jure 
suzerainty.  The  stipulation  was  contained  in 
Article  I.  of  the  Convention  of  July,  1886  ;  and, 
as  at  the  same  time  some  preliminary  steps  had 
already  been  taken  toAvards  opening  up  trade 
from  British  India  with  Tibet,  by  Article  IV. 
it    was  agreed    to   stay  further  action   in  this 


A.D.  1894-1904]    THE    BURMESE    QUESTION     101 

sense,  and  not  "  press  the  matter  unduly  "  ;■ — 
in  other  words,  to  drop  it,  as  another  sop  to 
China  for  holding  her  tongue  about  Burma. 
The  Convention  of  March,  1894,  "  gave  effect  " 
to  the  third  article  of  this  Convention  of  1886 
by  dealing  with  the  Burma  frontier  and  its 
trade  questions  alone,  but  of  course  it  omitted 
all  allusion  to  Tibet.  The  Chinese,  meanwhile, 
having  made  an  imprudent  treaty  with  France 
touching  the  cession  to  her  of  certain  Shan 
states,  which  had  been  quite  as  much  Burmese 
as  Chinese,  were  compelled  by  Great  Britain 
further  to  modify  the  Convention  of  1894  by 
another  one  dated  February,  1897,  which  recti- 
fied the  frontier  in  other  directions  less  clearly 
savouring  of  Burmese  "  rights,"  and  therefore 
much  to  the  advantage  of  Burma  :  it  further 
provided  for  the  establishment  of  British  consuls 
at  Esmok  and  Momein.  By  a  special  additional 
article,  the  coveted  West  River  above  Canton 
was  at  last  opened  to  trade,  together  with  the 
ports  of  Wu-chou  and  Sam-shui.  Thus,  after 
an  interval  of  2,000  years,  we  obtained  the 
rights  forcibly  taken  by  China  from  the  King 
of  South  Yiieh.^  Finally,  by  the  Kowloong 
Extension  and  the  Wei-hai  Wei  Agreements  of 
1898,  we  enlarged  our  hold  over  the  mainland 
opposite  Hongkong,  and  acquired  the  "  ele- 
ments "  of  a  new  naval  base  in  Shan  Tung, 
which  was  situated  right  between  the  "  spheres  " 
of  Russia  and  Germany.  Naggings  with  China 
about  Tibetan  trade  went  on  at  intervals  till 
they  culminated  (1904)  in  our  occupation  of 
Lhassa  :  on  the  Burmese  frontier  we  have 
secured  command  of  the  whole  Irrawaddy  valley. 
In  view  of  all  this  no  one  will  say- — however 
much  in  matters  of  detail  we  may  have  erred 
in  judgment* — that  Great  Britain  has  failed  to 

1  Pp.  48,  61. 


102        '       ARRIVAL   OF   EUROPEANS       [chap,  v 

secure  for  herself,  on  the  whole,  a  considerable 
number  of  miscellaneous  commercial  and  political 
advantages  from  the  jdcheuse  situation  arising 
out  of  an  attitude  on  the  part  of  China  so  hostile 
to  "  progress." 

The  Russians  were  the  first  Europeans  to  hold 
relations  on  a  national  scale  with  China,  though 
it  is  highly  improbable  that  at  first  the  Chinese 
had  the  faintest  idea  of  connecting  them  either 
with  the  ancient  Ta-ts'in  people,   or  with  any 
other  hazily  conceived  "  tribes  "   of  the   West 
Ocean,  or  Europe.     They  were  rather  grouped, 
in    the    Chinese    mind,    with    the    Kirghis    and 
Kipchaks  as  a  Western  Asiatic  race  of  hyper- 
boreans.    The  story  of  the  Mongol  conquests  of 
1240  and  onwards  has  often  been  told,  but  it 
is  not  so  generally  known  that  Russian  imperial 
guards  are  frequently  mentioned  at  the  Mongol 
Court  of  Peking  at  intervals  up  to  a  century 
later  than  that  date,  and  this  at  a  time  when  the 
Mongol  dynasty  at  Peking  was  tottering  to  its 
fall,  and  had  no  more  political  hold  of  any  kind 
upon   Russia.     Not   one    single   word   touching 
Russia  appears   in  Chinese  history  during  the 
whole  interval  between  the  disappearance  of  the 
Mongols   (1368)   and   the   rise  of  the   Manchus 
(1644)  ;  but,  according  to  Russian  accounts,  an 
unsuccessful    attempt    to    induce    the    Chinese 
Emperor  to  open  relations  was  made  in  1567. 
It   seems  to  be  certain  that  there  were  some 
Russians  found  in  Shan  Si  twenty  years  before 
this,  but  it  does  not  appear  very  clearly  what 
they  were  doing  there  :    they  seem  to  have  been 
ultimately  rescued  from  danger  by  some  friendly 
Mongols.     The  chief  authority  for  this  strange 
incident,  when  I  first  discussed  it,  was  the  ad- 
venturous  Portuguese  traveller  Mendez  Pinto, 
already    mentioned,    who    was    taken    prisoner 
by  the  Chinese,  and  put  to  work  on  the  Great 


A.D.  1620-1860]  EARLY  RUSSIAN  RELATIONS  103 

Wall  repairs.^  Two  Cossacks  were  sent,  via 
Kalgan,  on  a  mission  to  Peking  by  the  Governor 
of  Tobolsk  in  1619,  but  with  like  unsatisfactory 
results.  In  1652  there  began  a  long  struggle 
between  the  Manchus  and  the  Russians  for  the 
possession  of  Yaksa,  or  Albazin,  on  the  Anuir. 
Baikofi'  was  sent  on  a  mission  in  1653.  By 
the  Treaty  of  Nerchinsk  of  August,  1689,  the 
Russians  agreed  to  abandon  Albazin,  and  a 
number  of  them  were  removed  as  prisoners  to 
Peking,  where  they  were  incorporated  in  the 
"  banner "  system.  Provision  was  made  for 
their  religious  instruction,  and  this  is  really  the 
germ  of  the  Russian  Orthodox  Mission  at  Peking. 
Aigun,  opposite  Blagoveschtschensk,  where  the 
fighting  occurred  in  August,  1900,  was  made 
the  local  Manchu  capital  in  1684.  The  history  of 
Russian  relations  with  the  Manchus  is  a  long 
one.  It  embraces  the  questions  of  the  Turgut 
Mongols'  or  Kalmucks'  migration  to  the  Volga, 
the  Manchu  envoy  Tulishen's  missions  to  them  in 
1715-30,  and  their  subsequent  return  in  a  dis- 
gusted frame  of  mind  to  China  in  1770  ;  Russia's 
missions  to  China  in  1719-27 ;  the  Kalmuck 
wars,  and  the  surrender  by  Russia  of  fugitives  ; 
frontier  disputes  in  1848-9  ;  the  occupation  by 
Russia  of  the  Lower  Amur  in  1855  ;  Poutiatin's 
mission ;  and  the  Treaty  of  Aigun  in  1858. 
Their  commercial  relations  Math  China  had  been 
confined  to  the  tea  trade  of  Kiachta,  and  to  a 
trifling  barter  near  Tarbagatai.  In  1860  Count 
Ignatieff,  by  the  Treaty  of  Peking,  took  advan- 
tage of  the  situation  created  by  the  Anglo-French 
attack  upon  China  to  secure  the  annexation  to 
Russia  of  the  whole  Ussuri  region.  In  1862  there 
was  concluded  a  convention  regulating  the  land 

^  I  have  since  dealt  willi  the  whole  subject  in  detail.  See 
Mongolia  before  ihe  Manchus,  Shanghai  As.  Soc.  Vol.  xliv.,  and 
The  Russians  and  Mongolia,  University  Press,  1917. 


104  ARRIVAL   OF  EUROPEANS       [chap,  v 

trade  via  Kalgan,  but  this  was  subsequently 
superseded  by  another  dated  15th  April,  1869. 
When  China  was  in  the  throes  of  the  Mussulman 
revolt,  Russia  temporarily  occupied  the  province 
of  Hi  ;  but,  after  Yakub  Beg's  power  had  been 
broken  in  1876,  energetic  steps  were  taken  by 
China  to  recover  from  Russia  this  important 
region,  and  these  efforts  proved  successful  in 
1880-1.  At  one  time  the  Manchvi  envoy 
Ch'unghou  had  nearly  been  persuaded,  amid  the 
Capuan  delights  of  Livadia,  into  abandoning 
the  territory,  and  it  was  largely  owing  to  the 
patriotic  denvmciations  of  (the  later  Viceroy) 
Chang  Chi-tung  that  his  timorous  action  was 
repudiated  by  China.  During  all  this  long 
period  of  time  the  Russians  had  been  carefully 
kept  by  the  Chinese  as  far  away  as  possible 
from  Manchuria,  the  whole  of  which  region  it 
had  always,  since  the  Albazin  affair,  been 
Manchu  policy  to  maintain  as  nearly  as  might 
be  practicable  in  the  condition  of  an  unoccupied 
desert.  It  was  only  in  1888,  after  British  con- 
sular and  military  officers  had  visited  and 
reported  on  that  fertile  region,  that  China 
awoke  to  the  fallacy  of  this  timid  policy.  Since 
then  the  three  Manchurian  provinces  have  been 
civilly  organised,  cviltivated,  and  populated  as 
quickly  as  possible,  and  were  thus  being  pre- 
pared to  resist  the  advance  of  Russian  power 
by  the  development  of  their  own  economic 
strength.  Bvit  the  utter  collapse  of  the  Chinese 
and  Manchu  military  efficiency  during  the 
Japanese  war  gave  Russia  another  opportunity, 
which  she  was  not  slow  to  take,  in  the  way  now 
well  known  to  us  all.  Moreover,  the  Russian 
idea,  first  conceived  at  the  time  of  the  Crimean 
VV^ar,  of  constructing  a  Siberian  railway,  had 
come  to  sudden  ripeness  in  March,  1891,  when 
the    Czar    Alexander    III.,    differing    from    his 


A.D.  1900,  A.n.  1300]     RUSSO-JAPANESE  WAR     105 

ministers,     took    a    peremptory    resolution    in 
favour  of  one  uninterrupted  line  ;    and  the  time 
was  now  thought  favourable  for  diverting  this 
line,    as    originally    planned    under    Alexander's 
ukase,    from    Nerchinsk,    through    Manchuria ; 
since  then,  however,  the  Russians  have  seen  the 
wisdom  of  continuing  their  "  all-Russian  "  line 
to  Vladivostock  by  way  of  Khabarovka.     The 
Cassini  Convention  of  September,  189G,  secured 
railway   powers  that  gave  to  Russia   an   over- 
whelming   predominancy    in    the    north    of   the 
Chinese  Empire,  as  far  down  as  the  Liao  Tung 
peninsula.     As  a  direct  consequence  of  the  un- 
expected   seizure    of   Kiao    Chou   by    Germany, 
towards  the  end  of  1897,  the  Russians  actually 
occupied  Port  Arthur  and  Ta-lien  Wan,  as  the 
Cassini  Convention  seems  to  have  loosely  stipu- 
lated,— under     certain     undefined      conditions. 
Invents  subsequently  so  shaped  themselves  that 
Russia  was  now  in  quasi-possession  of  all  Man- 
churia   until    the    "  Boxers "    began    to    move. 
Following   shortly  upon  that  came  the  Russo- 
Japanese  war,  the  result  of  which  was  to  divide 
the    railway    administration    of   Manchuria    be- 
tween Russia  and  Japan  ;    and  now  (1917)  the 
chivalrous  attitude  towards  each  other  of  these 
former    rivals    has    led    to    a    treaty    extending 
Japanese  "  rights  "  up  to  Harbin,  and  giving  them 
in  addition  sailing  privileges  on  the  Sungari  river. 
The  French  until  very  recently  did  not  make 
much    history   in   China.     Lewis    IX.    sent    the 
Franciscan     friar     Ruysbroek     (Rubruquis)     to 
Mangu  Khan  in  1254,  but  the  name  of  France 
does  not  appear  in  the  numerous  Mongol  allu- 
sions   to    Christians.     Between    1289    and    1305 
there    was    some    correspondence    between    the 
Mongol  khans  of  Persia  and  Philip  the  Fair,  and 
in  1342  a  native  of  "  Fulang  "  State  is  recorded 
in  Mongol  history  to  have  brought  a  present  to 


106  ARRIVAL   OF  EUROPEANS       [chap,  v 

Peking  of  a  very  fine  black  liorse  with  white 
"  stockings."  The  same  history  had  already 
recorded  the  death,  in  about  1312,  of  a  "  Fuhn  " 
man  from  the  West  who  had  served  Gayuk  and 
Kublai  Khans  as  physician,  astronomer,  and 
historian.  Amongst  this  man  Aisle's  (?  Isaiah's) 
sons  were  Elias,  Georgius,  and  Luke  ;  so  that 
he  was  probably  at  least  a  Syrian,  if  not  a  Frank. 
In  1367  and  1375  Fuhn  men  are  heard  of  at  the 
Court  of  the  new  Ming  dynasty.  But  the  name 
of  France  never  appears  for  certain  in  Chinese 
history  until  the  year  1718,  when,  in  enumerat- 
ing the  Holan  (Butch)  and  other  strange  Western 
nations,  the  Manchu  Emperor  observes  the 
"  unusual  ferocity "  of  the  Holansi,  who  are 
"  of  the  same  race  as  the  Macanese."  True, 
Lewis  XIV.  had  sent  a  letter  to  the  Chinese 
Emperor  in  1688,  recommending  to  him  some 
French  Jesuits  ;  but  no  mention  whatever  is 
made  of  this  event  in  the  Manchu  history.  There 
was,  apparently,  a  certain  amount  of  French 
trade  at  Canton,  as  is  evident  from  the  fact  that 
the  United  States  received  French  assistance 
there  in  1785  ;  but  French  interests  in  China  up 
to  the  date  of  the  Second  War  were  almost 
exclusively  religious,  and  her  missionaries  during 
all  this  long  period  of  self-effacement  suffered 
great  persecution.  In  spite  of  the  noble  services 
done  by  Bouvet,  Regis,  Jartoux,  and  other 
Jesuits  in  mapping  out  the  empire,  Christianity 
was  prohibited,  and  many  missionaries  were 
martyred  in  the  provinces.  But  the  limited 
toleration  of  Christianity  secured  by  the  Treaty 
of  Nanking  encouraged  Louis  Philippe  to  obtain 
in  1847  a  similar  treaty  (Whampoa)  for  France, 
whose  missionaries  were  thenceforward  allowed 
to  settle  in  the  five  treaty  ports. 

The  great  Taiping  rebellion  of  1850,  to  which 
I  recur  in  a  later  chapter,   had  for  one  of  its 


A.D.  1855-1875]      FRENCH  MISSIONARIES  107 

ostensible  objects  the  establishment  of  Chris- 
tianity in  China.  This  incongruous  mixture  of 
rebellion  and  religion  naturally  led  to  fresh 
persecutions,  for  the  rebel  leader  claimed  a  kind 
of  personal  relationship  with  Jesus  Christ.  The 
torture  and  judicial  murder  of  Father  Chappede- 
laine  in  1856  gave  Napoleon  III.  a  welcome  justi- 
fication for  joining  the  British  in  the  Second 
War,  as  a  result  of  which  further  advantages 
were  secured  (in  a  rather  underhand  way)  to 
the  missionaries,  and  the  old  cathedral  at  Peking 
was  solemnly'  re-opened.  On  their  way  back 
from  China,  the  commanders  of  the  French  fleet, 
in  conjunction  with  the  Spaniards,  who  also  had 
unredressed  grievances  against  Annam,  con- 
quered part  of  Cochin  China,  and  by  the  treaty 
of  1862  Saigon  and  the  surrounding  province 
was  made  over  to  the  French.  This  led  to 
further  conquests  and  cessions  in  1867,  partly 
as  a  sequel  to  the  explorations  of  Gamier  and 
others  in  the  Shan  states  and  Ylin  Nan.  Whilst 
the  Chinese  were  engaged  about  this  time 
in  quelling  the  Mussulman  revolt  in  Yiin  Nan, 
a  sjDcculative  Frenchman  named  Dupuis  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  supplying  them  with  arms 
by  way  of  Tonquin,  where  the  French  began  to 
make  "  arrangements  "  in  1870.  This  led  again 
to  further  activity  on  the  part  of  Garnier,  who 
had  now  been  to  Peking  and  visited  the  Yang- 
tsze  ports ;  his  career,  however,  was  cut  short 
by  the  border  bandit  Lao  Vinh-phuc  '  and  his 
"Black  Flags"  in  1873.  The  same  thing 
happened  ten  years  later  to  the  adventurous 
Riviere,  and  almost  on  the  same  spot.  A 
rebellion  in  Tonquin,  led  by  a  discontented 
Chinese  general  named  Li  Yang-ts'ai,  placed 
China  in  rather  a  false  position  with  the  Black 
Flag  leader,  and  also  with  the  Annamese,  who 

^  Died,  honoured,  Jan.  1917. 


108  ARRIVAL   OF   EUROPEANS       [chap,  v 

were  thus  uncomfortably  placed  between  three 
fires.     But    meanwhile    the    French    had    been 
steadily  tightening  their  hold  upon  Annam  and 
Tonquin,  and  all  this  naturally  made  the  Chinese 
authorities  in  the   Two   Kwang   provinces  feel 
very   uneasy,   not   only   because  Annam   was  a 
tributary,   but  because  their  own  frontier  was 
placed  in  danger.     Finally  hostilities  broke  out ; 
the    Chinese    fleet    was    destroyed    at    Pagoda 
Anchorage ;      an    attempt    was    made    by    the 
French  to  occupy  parts  of  the  Pescadores  and 
Formosa  ;   and  at  last,  by  the  Fournier  Treaty  of 
May,  1884,  and  its  sequel  of  June,  1885,  China 
agreed  to  recognise  the  validity  of  the  treaties 
entered  into  between  France  and  Annam,  secur- 
ing to  the  former  the  protectorate  of  Tonquin. 
Haiphong  now  became  an  important  centre  of 
trade,     and    economical    development     quickly 
followed   all   over   Tonquin.     A   delimitation   of 
land   frontiers   Avas    arranged,    and    one    of  the 
political    results    has    been    that    several    new 
treaty  "  ports  "  have  opened  to  the  French  the 
inland  trade  of  Kwang  Si  and  Yiin  Nan.     Lung- 
chow  (now  connected  with  Langson,  in  Tonquin, 
by  railway)  was  opened  to  trade  on  the  1st  June, 
1889  ;    Mengtsz  was  also  thrown  open  in  August 
of  the  same  year  ;    and  Hokow  (opposite  Lao- 
kai    on   the   Franco-Chinese   frontier)   in   June, 
1895.     The  new  through  railway,  opened  in  1910, 
enhances  the  commercial  importance  of  all  these 
places,  and  places  the  Yiin  Nan  capital  in  direct 
communication  with  the  sea.    Of  course  France 
alone  of  Treaty  Powers  is  the  one  that  nominally 
benefits  by  all  this  ;    but  although   it   was   in- 
tended primarily  to  serve  the  interests  of  Franco- 
Annamese  traders,  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  trade, — 
so  far  as  it  is   not  throttled  by  short-sighted 
fiscal  measures, — is  chiefly  between  the  Chinese 
of  Yiin  Nan  and  the  merchants  of  Hongkong, 


A.D.  1860-1805]  FRENCH  AND  GERMAN  DOINGS  100 

By  the  Gerard  Convention  of  1895  Esmok  was 
opened  to  Tonquin  trade,  and  a  like  privilege 
was  secured  to  the  British-proteeted  Shan 
states  by  the  Burma  Convention  of  1896.  Thus 
this  last  place  (Esmok)  is  the  spot  where  British 
and  French  interests  unite.  The  French  availed 
themselves  of  the  novel  situation  created  in  the 
first  instance  by  Germany  at  Kiao  Chou  to  claim 
"  compensation  "  in  the  shape  of  the  old  pirate 
haunt  of  Kwang-chou  Wan  (Bay)  opposite  the 
island  of  Hainan,  and  proceeded  to  add  to  it 
in  petto  an  undefined  Hinterland  :  a  dispute  as 
to  boundaries  soon  provoked  hostilities,  and  it 
was  in  consequence  of  this  that  the  French 
pushed  their  way  up  to  and  established  a  political 
influence  at  Yiin-nan  Fu,  whence,  however,  they 
had  to  retire  precipitately  on  the  breaking  out 
of  "  Boxer  "  troubles.  As  we  have  seen,  things 
have  righted  themselves  once  more,  and  for 
many  years  both  sides  have  shown  tact  in  con- 
serving neighbourly  relations. 

Germany  was  not  even  known  to  China  by 
name  previous  to  the  Second  War,  although  in 
1752  Frederick  the  Great  had  founded  an  Asiatic 
Company  and  sent  two  ships  to  Canton  ;  even 
in  Ricci's  time  some  of  the  Jesuits  were  known 
to  hail  from  "  Germania,"  but  where  that  place 
was  no  one  either  knew  or  cared.  After  the 
British  and  French  had  got  their  treaties  finally 
settled  in  1860,  "  various  smaller  states," 
amongst  which  Prussia,  applied  for  similar 
privileges.  The  Prussian  treaty  was  signed  at 
Tientsin  in  September,  1861,  but  for  five  years 
after  that  no  Prussian  envoy  was  allowed  to 
reside  at  Peking.  For  some  time  after  their 
arrival  the  Germans  occupied  a  rather  humble 
position  in  an  insignificant  tenement,  which 
now  forms  a  small  part  of  the  British  Legation 
precincts  ;    and,  politically  speaking,  they  were 


110  ARRIVAL   OF   EUROPEANS       [chap,  v 

simply  makeAveiglits  to  Great  Britain's  general 
policy.  But  after  the  successful  Franco-German 
War  they  began  to  assume  a  considerably  higher 
tone,  which  sometimes  became  aggressively 
haughty  when  the  Chinese  local  officials  ven- 
tured to  question  the  justice  of  their  claims.  On 
one  occasion  at  Swatow  (I  think  in  1882)  they 
landed  marines  and  took  forcible  possession  of 
a  contested  piece  of  ground  ;  but  this  violent 
action  was  at  once  sensibly  repudiated  by  Prince 
Bismarck.  Notwithstanding  all  this,  even  so 
late  as  1890  the  Viceroy  at  Canton  publicly 
announced  that  the  Germans  were  more  sub- 
missive than  the  English,  and  therefore  prefer- 
able as  military  instructors.  In  consequence 
of  these  views,  the  military  education  of  the 
Chinese  has  often  been  largely  in  the  hands  of 
Germans,  who  have  also  very  naturally  taken 
the  opportunity  to  "  unload  "  arms  and  ammuni- 
tion. The  Germans,  who  engineered  the  job, 
obtained  some  credit  as  joint-deliverers  with 
France  and  Russia  when  the  Chinese  were  help- 
less at  the  feet  of  Japan.  But  the  culminating 
point  in  Germany's  diplomatic  influence  was 
reached  when,  in  piping  times  of  peace,  Kiao 
Chou  and  the  surrounding  territories  were  taken 
by  force  in  ostensible  satisfaction  for  some 
injuries  done  to  missionaries,  but  manifestly 
also  because  China  had  not  showed  sufficiently 
tangible  gratitude  for  favours  received.  This 
act,  unprecedented  in  the  annals  of  diplomacy 
and  international  comity,  undoubtedly  set  the 
evil  ball  a-rolling  which  led  to  the  occupation 
of  Port  Arthur  and  Ta-lien  Wan  by  Russia, 
Wei-hai  Wei  by  England,  and  Kwang-chou  Wan 
by  France  :  but  in  all  three  cases  these  Powers 
at  least  went  through  the  form  of  asking  before 
taking,  and  exhibited  some  small  consideration 
for  China's  "  face."     In  the  long  run,  perhaps 


A.D.  1785-1900J  POOR    CHINA!  Ill 

this  aggressiveness  may  redound  to  the  advan- 
tage of  the  Chinese  people ;  but  there  is  rather 
an  unsavoury  smell  about  it  all,  and  possibly 
we  should  have  done  better  for  our  descendants 
if  we  had  agreed  to  put  things  back  upon  their 
former  holiest  basis.  In  any  case,  the  propin- 
quity of  the  Germans  to  Confucius'  sacred  district 
proved  maddening  to  the  Chinese  literary  mind, 
and  was  of  itself  enough  to  account  for  at  least 
one  of  the  massacres  at  Peking,  and,  unfortun- 
ately, elsewhere  :  at  the  best  this  aggressiveness 
looked  like  hitting  a  weak  man  when  he  was 
down.  Meanwhile  Japan  in  self-defence  had 
to  re-establish  herself  at  the  cost  of  a  war 
in  the  Liao  Tung  peninsula,  and  to  eject 
Germany  from  Kiao  Chou  on  the  first  good 
opportunity.  Great  Britain's  hold  on  Wei-hai 
Wei  has  been  "  benevolent,"  savouring,  in 
fact,  of  a  "  watching "  brief :  it  remains  for 
France  to  decide  what  course  of  action  her 
historical  chivalry  will  call  for  in  the  early 
future. 

The  United  States  sent  their  pioneer  trading 
ship  to  China  in  1785  ;  they  were  first  intro- 
duced by  the  French  into  the  mysteries  of  the 
co-hong  or  "  joint-stock  "  system  at  Canton  ; 
but  in  those  days  foreign  traders  were  only 
allowed  to  reside  there  during  the  trading  season. 
For  some  reason  this  rule  was  not  enforced  so 
strictly  with  the  Americans,  probably  because 
they  had  just  emerged  from  a  war  with  the 
aggressive  English,  and  were  regarded  in  the 
light  of  possible  allies.  The  Chinese  at  first 
styled  them  "  New  People,"  not  being  able  at 
once  to  differentiate  them  from  the  English. 
Then  the  name  "  Flowery-Flag  "  was  invented, 
and  this  national  name  continues  in  popular 
use  to  our  own  day.  In  1821  the  honour  of 
"  Old  Glory  "  was   somewhat   com.promised  by 


112  ARRIVAL   OF   EUROPEANS        [chap,  v 

the  surrender  to  the  Chinese  for  execution  of 
one  Terranuova,  a  European  who  had  been 
inscribed  on  the  articles  of  an  American  ship. 
By  the  treaties  of  Wang-hia  of  July,  1844,  and 
Whampoa  of  October  in  the  same  year,  the 
United  States  secured  the  privileges  obtained 
by  England  for  her  subjects  after  the  first 
Chinese  war.  During  the  progress  of  the  Second 
War,  the  Chinese  neglected  no  effort  to  use  the 
United  States  as  a  catspaw  ;  and  indeed  the 
Americans,  who  perhaps  assisted  us  by  putting 
moral  pressure  upon  China,  had  a  considerable 
amount  of  influence  in  arranging  the  final  settle- 
ment at  Tientsin  :  consequently  they  obtained 
their  treaty  in  1858  a  week  earlier  than  did 
either  the  British  or  the  French,  who  had  done 
all  the  fighting.  There  is,  however,  a  tradition 
that  a  small  American  force  gave  us  active 
assistance  at  Taku,  when  the  celebrated  "  blood 
is  thicker  than  water  "  episode  took  place.  A 
real  ground  for  hostilities  furnished  by  the 
Chinese  to  the  otherwise  friendly  Americans  was 
the  firing  into  two  of  their  vessels  by  the  forts 
of  the  Bogue  on  the  17th  November,  1856.  By 
the  Treaty  of  Washington  of  1868  the  United 
States  disclaimed  all  desire  to  interfere  in 
Chinese  affairs,  and  arranged  for  the  admission 
of  immigrants  into  the  United  States.  The 
hostile  feeling  engendered  in  the  western  terri- 
tories and  states  by  the  overflow  of  undesirable 
Chinese  led  to  a  compromise  in  the  shape  of  the 
Commercial  Treaty  of  1880,  and  finally  to  the 
Immigration  Prohibition  Treaty  of  1894,  which 
in  1904  the  Chinese  envoy  at  Washington  was 
instructed  to  oppose  vigorously.  The  United 
States  have  always  been  somewhat  prone  to 
pose  as  the  good  and  disinterested  friend  of 
China,  who  does  not  sell  opium  or  exercise  any 
undue  political  influence.     These  claims  to  the 


A.D.  1865-1900]  HONEST  AMERICAN  BROKER  113 

exceptional  status  of  an  honest  broker  have 
sometimes  been  shaken  by  the  sharp  treatment 
of  Chinese  in  the  United  States,  Honolulu,  and 
Manila  ;  but  perhaps  the  Central  Government 
at  Washington  has  not  always  the  po\^^^  to 
make  its  just  wishes  prevail  over  the  biased 
decisions  of  state  legislatures,  and  is  not  there- 
fore to  be  blamed  too  severely.  The  somewhat 
loudly  advertised  return  of  "part  of"  the 
"  Boxer "  indemnity  (in  any  case  subject  to 
conditions)  simply  means  that  America  had 
asked  for  more  meat  than  she  could  decently 
swallow.  American  policy  in  Corea,  having  been 
in  missionary  hands,  was  very  creditable,  and 
also  had  a  decidedly  favourable  effect  at  Peking, 
where  for  many  years  the  United  States'  influence 
was  otherwise  weak.  However,  America's  ab- 
stract virtues  in  Corea  availed  her  nothing  against 
the  Japanese  legions.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
earlier  Chinese  policy  in  Manila  was  for  some  time 
both  ungenerous  and  suicidal :  no  Chinese  except 
those  who  left  during  the  war  were  allowed  to 
immigrate,  although  Chinese  labour  alone  had 
developed  and  can  develop  the  resources  of  the 
islands.  At  present  the  Americans  themselves 
do  not  seem  quite  to  know  what  is  the  best  thing 
to  do  with  Manila.  Mr.  Morse  is  the  writer 
who  gives  us  the  most  temperate  and  just 
account  of  his  countrymen's  policy  in  China. 

Belgium  appeared  amongst  the  minor  claim- 
ants for  a  treaty  after  the  second  war,  and  one 
was  finally  concluded  in  1865.  She  had  not 
been  much  heard  of  in  China  until  1898,  when 
her  name  has  come  prominently  forward  in 
connection  with  railway  and  other  concessions. 
In  1900  M.  Joostens  pressed  for  Belgium's 
right  to  an  envoy  for  herself  alone,  and  this  was 
acceded  to  in  1905. 

In  1862  the  Portuguese,  with  the  assistance  of 


114  ARRIVAL   OF  EUROPEANS       [chap,  v 

the  French,  endeavoured,  but  unsuccessfully,  to 
obtain  a  formal  treaty  with  China,  but  it  was 
not  until  1887  that  they  were  officially  recog- 
nised as  possessors  of  Macao.  From  1582  to 
1849  they  had  regularly  paid  a  rental  of  510 
taels  a  year,  and  the  Manchu  Government  natur- 
ally declined  to  recognise  the  declaration  of 
independence  which  followed  upon  the  assassina- 
tion, on  the  22nd  August,  1849,  of  Governor  do 
Amaral.  I  possess  a  Chinese  copy  of  a  draft 
treaty  dated  1862,  but  I  do  not  think  it  was  ever 
signed  :  certainly  it  was  never  ratified,  nor  was 
any  Portuguese  treaty  right  conceded.  It  was 
to  the  interest  of  both  parties  that  this  hap- 
hazard state  of  affairs  should  be  rectified.  China 
required  the  co-operation  of  Macao  in  order  to 
obtain  the  full  advantages  conceded  in  1886  by 
Great  Britain  in  connection  with  the  opium 
revenue ;  and  in  view  of  what  had  happened 
in  Formosa  during  the  1884  hostilities  with 
France,  both  China  and  Portugal  felt  nervous 
lest  any  other  power- — especially  France- — should 
appropriate  Macao.  Portugal  therefore  under- 
took never  to  alienate  it  without  China's  con- 
sent, and  on  these  conditions  she  drags  out  a 
comparatively  uneventful  existence  there.  Be- 
tween 1901  and  1905  the  Minister  at  Peking, 
Senhor  Branco,  exhibited  considerable  activity  ; 
more  than  one  treaty  was  elaborated,  besides 
subsidiary  agreements  ;  the  knotty  points  were 
Macao's  food  supply,  nationality  and  naturalisa- 
tion, harbour  boundaries,  smuggling,  railway 
to  Canton,  ownership  of  neighbouring  islands, 
etc.  Disputes  were  still  going  on  when  the 
Manchus  fell,  and  so  far  neither  of  the  two 
republics  seems  to  have  "  ratified." 

The  Japanese,  who  are  now  fairly  entitled 
alike  by  right  in  moral  principle  and  might  of 
conquest  to  equal  rank  amongst  the  greatest  of 


A.D.  1853-1883]  JAPAN'S    RISE  115 

Powers,  had  always  been  utterly  ignored  by 
the  Manchus  up  to  the  date  of  the  second  war 
with  Great  Britain,  and  this  feeling  of  proud 
aloofness  was  heartily  reciprocated.  In  1853 
the  United  States  expedition,  under  Commodore 
Perry,  led  to  the  circumscribed  Treaty  of  Kana- 
gawa  in  1854.  Similar  treaties  were  concluded 
with  Great  Britain  and  Russia  in  1855  ;  and, 
after  the  Anglo-French  War  of  1858,  Lord 
Elgin,  by  the  Treaty  of  Yeddo,  obtained  the 
opening  of  Japan  to  British  commerce.  In 
1868-9  took  place  the  great  Japanese  revolu- 
tion, the  abolition  of  the  second  king,  or  Shogun, 
with  the  whole  superstructure  of  feudalism, 
and  the  restoration  to  real  power  of  the  Mikado, 
or  true  Emperor.  The  Japanese  now  lost  no 
time  in  preparing  themselves  as  quickly  as 
possible  for  a  suitable  place  in  the  world's 
councils,  and  never  in  the  history  of  the  universe 
has  a  national  transformation  been  so  rapid  or 
complete.  In  1871  they  succeeded  in  concluding 
their  first  treaty  with  China,  w4iich  was  signed 
by  Li  Hung-chang  in  the  autumn  of  that  year. 
The  Chinese  did  not  at  first  take  the  Japanese 
very  seriously,  feeling  rather  a  contempt  for  a 
nation,  of  small  physique  withal,  which  so 
readily  threw  off  its  veneer  of  Chinese  civilisation 
in  favour  of  new-fangled  European  notions ; 
but  the  Formosa  dispute  of  1874  soon  awoke 
them  to  the  fact  that  the  despised  islanders 
were  not  to  be  trifled  with.  That  same  year 
Japan,  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen,  placed  China's 
old  tributary  Loochoo  under  the  control  of  the 
Tokyo  Home  Office,  and  all  China's  expostula- 
tions were  ignored,  as  well  as  the  piteous  en- 
treaties of  Loochoo  itself.  When,  in  1883,  the 
Powers  began  to  conclude  treaties  with  Corea, 
it  was  found  that  Japan  had  ancient  vested 
rights  of  an  unmistakably  historical  nature  at 
10 


116  ARRIVAL   OF   EUROPEANS        [chap,  v 

Fusan,  and  it  was  soon  evident  to  all  and 
sundry  therein  concerned  that  she  was  bent  on 
developing  them  in  other  parts  of  Corea  too. 
China,  as  Corea' s  suzerain,  was  somewhat 
puzzled  what  to  do  when  Japan  in  1876  signed  a 
treaty  with  the  "independent  sovereign  state" 
of  Chosen ;  the  matter  became  more  compli- 
cated when  the  United  States  and  England  did 
the  same  thing  in  1882-3.  The  negotiators  of 
the  American  treaty  kindly  admitted  to  a  share 
of  privileges  thus  directly  obtained  China  also, 
who  thus  proceeded  to  conclude  a  treaty  with 
her  own  vassal,  and  then  immediately  set  to 
work  to  intrigue  with  a  view  to  substituting  her 
own  active  influence  in  lieu  of  that  of  Japan. 
This  led  to  sundry  revolutions,  murders,  kid- 
nappings, and  hostilities,  which  lasted  over  a 
period  of  ten  years,  and  finally  culminated  in 
the  war  of  1894-5,  when  China  received  a 
thorough  thrashing,  and  lost  both  Corea  and 
Formosa  :  after  that  for  a  decade  her  interests 
in  Corea  were  semi-officially  looked  after  by  the 
British.  In  December,  1899,  China  concluded 
another  treaty  with  the  "  Great  Emperor  "  of 
Corea,  foolishly  neglecting,  however,  to  insert 
a  most-favoured-nation  clause.- — To  return  to 
Japan  ;  the  Shimonoseki  Treaty  and  Liao  Tung 
Convention  of  1895  had  at  once  raised  Japan 
to  the  status  of  a  Weltmacht,  and  brought  her 
into  diplomatic  collision  with  European  powers 
as  above  described.  The  Commercial  Treaty 
of  1896  somewhat  unexpectedly  placed  in  the 
hands  of  Europeans  many  of  the  advantages 
Japan  had  hoped  to  secure  for  herself,  and  the 
new  ports  of  Soochow  and  Hangchow  were  as 
a  sequel  opened  to  the  world.  Sic  vos,  non  vohis 
is  the  motto  applicable  to  Japan's  action  ;  but 
she  took  her  "  dishing "  with  great  dignity, 
and  when  in  1900  the  declaration  by  China  of 


A.D.18G3-1900]  THE  JAPANESE.    THE  DANES  117 

hostilities  against  the  whole  world  gave  Japan 
her  next  great  opportunity,  we  could  only  expect 
that  she  would  not  allow  herself  to  be  relegated 
to  a  "  back  seat  "  again.  The  Mikado  of  Japan 
took  absolutely  equal  rank  with  the  Czar  of 
Russia  and  the  Queen  of  England  in  settling 
up  by  telegraph  the  dreadful  mess  created  by 
the  "  Boxer "  fiasco.  Four  years  after  that 
came  the  unfortunate  Russo-Japanese  conflict, 
which,  however,  despite  the  intrigues  of  a  reptile 
foe,  has  left  them  both  mutually  respecting 
friends  of  each  other  and  allies  of  Great  Britain. 
Corea  is  now  a  Japanese  province,  and  doing 
well  at  that.  Whatever  Japanese  past  faults 
may  have  been,  a  courageous  fighting  race  will 
always  appeal  to  the  sporting  sense  of  fairness 
which  has  in  most  circumstances  our  national 
sympathies. 

The  Danes  had  a  "  hong  "  in  the  old  factory 
days   at   Canton :     they,    the   French,    and   the 
Swedes  depended  for  their  profits  largely  upon 
their  success  in  smuggling  tea  about  the  English 
coasts.     The  Danes,  through  the  good  offices  of 
Sir    Thomas    (then    Mr.)     Wade,    concluded    a 
treaty  with  China  in  1863,  and  until  1893  their 
interests  were  usually  looked  after  at  the  ports 
by   the   British    consular    authorities :     in   that 
year  they  were  placed  in  Russian  hands.     Danish 
interests  lie  chiefly  in  the  direction  of  Telegraph 
Conventions,  and    they    have    a    large    staff    at 
Shanghai  in  connection  with  the  Great  Northern 
and    Eastern    Extension    Companies.     It    need 
hardly   be   said   that   without   the   countenance 
and  support  of  Russia  and  Great  Britain  Den- 
mark would  not  count  for  much  in  the  Far  East. 
The  Spaniards  concluded  a  treaty  with  China 
in  1864,  but  it  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
ratified  until  1867.     In  1877  there  were  nego- 
tiations about  coolies  for  Cuba,  but  until  1881 


118  ARRIVAL   OF  EUROPEANS       [chap,  v 

the  Spaniards  do  not  seem  to  have  had  any 
permanent  minister  in  China.  The  Chinese 
traders  who  went  to  Manila  were  always  kept 
under  in  rather  an  uncompromising  way,  and 
it  was  manifestly  the  policy  of  Spain,  subsequent 
to  the  events  described  at  the  beginning  of  this 
chapter,  to  have  as  little  to  do  with  official 
China  as  possible.  But  in  1874  the  new  question 
of  the  ill-treatment  of  Chinese  in  Cuba  came 
under  discussion,  and  a  Chinese  mission  was  sent 
to  Cuba  to  inquire  ;  the  result  was  the  treaty  of 
December,  1878.  When  a  permanent  Chinese 
minister  was  sent  to  the  United  States  in  1879, 
Spain  and  Cuba  were  included  in  his  mission  ; 
and  so  it  came  about  that  the  Spaniards  had 
to  despatch  to  China  an  envoy  in  return.  His 
influence  at  Peking  was  never  very  great, 
though  Senor  Cologan,  as  Doyen  during  the 
"  Boxer "  settlement,  acquitted  liimself  with 
distinction.  Since  the  loss  of  the  Philippines 
to  America,  Spanish  influence  in  Peking  may 
be  said  to  have  disappeared  altogether,  except 
in  an  academic  sense. 

Italy  is  recorded  to  have  sent  tribute  in  1670, 
and  the  Pope  in  1723  ;  but  both  these  alleged 
events  are  connected  with  the  Jesuit-Dominican 
dispute,  the  stormy  conference  at  Macao,  and 
the  unsuccessful  missions  of  Tournon  and  Mezzo- 
barba.  The  Italians,  not  having  come  to  trade, 
arc  stated  by  Chinese  authors  to  be  the  most 
cultured  and  respectable  of  the  barbarians,  who 
would  never  have  "  rebelled  "  but  for  the  evil 
example  of  England  and  France.  The  words  of 
the  Chinese  historian  are  almost  prophetic,  in  view 
of  "Boxer "-time  Italian  action  in  Cheh  Kiang: 
"  Even  Italy,  the  most  famous  and  civilised  of 
European  countries,  was  moved  by  the  same 
prospect  of  greed,  and  in  1861  an  application  was 
made  by  the  Italian  Consul  for  a  share  in  trade 


A.D.1866-96]  ITALY,  AUSTRIA.  SWITZERLAND  119 

privileges."  The  first  Italian  treaty  was  con- 
cluded in  1866,  but  the  Itahans  did  not  put  in 
an  official  appearance  until  1877,  when  a  man- 
of-war  visited  the  coasts  of  Corea.  The  Italian 
minister  has  usually  resided  in  Shanghai,  in 
order  the  better  to  push  the  commercial  interests 
of  his  countrymen,  as,  for  instance,  the  Peking 
Syndicate  agreement,  signed  in  1898.  It  was 
not  till  1899,  in  connection  with  the  expected 
concessions  on  the  Cheh  Kiang  coasts,  that  Sr. 
Salvago  Raggi  on  behalf  of  Italy  first  showed 
signs  of  a  spirited  forward  policy.  Her  expec- 
tations were,  however,  nipped  in  the  bud  by  an 
unexpected  display  of  energy  on  the  part  of  the 
Chinese.  It  was  success  which  followed  this 
last  gasping  effort  of  resistance  that  probably 
inspired  the  vacillating  Manchu  rulers  with  a 
part  of  the  courage  necessary  in  order  to  brace 
themselves  up  for  the  crazy  "  Boxer  "  outburst. 
In  1902  Sr.  Gallina  insisted  that  Italy  should 
receive  a  special  Chinese  minister,  and  not  a 
mere  "  double-barrelled  "  man. 

The  Austrians  did  not  draw  up  a  treaty  until 
1869,  and  for  many  years  they  left  their  interests 
in  British  hands.  Their  minister  until  1901 
ordinarily  resided  in  Japan,  to  which  country 
he  was  also  accredited,  but  in  1902  Baron 
Czikann,  following  the  example  of  his  Italian 
colleague,  demanded  as  a  quid  pro  quo  for  his 
presence  at  Peking  a  "  single-barrelled  "  man 
for  Vienna.  From  this  date  Austria  was  a  (not 
very)  "  brilliant  second  "  to  Germany  in  China. 

The  Swiss  have  no  treaty,  and  their  interests 
are  commonly  entrusted  to  French  hands. 
This  absence  of  diplomatic  contact  had  its 
inconveniences  in  1896  in  connection  with  the 
Postal  Conference,  and  again  in  1904  when  Red 
Cross  matters  were  under  discussion. 

Peru  drew  up  a  treaty  with  China  in  1875, 


120  ARRIVAL   OF   EUROPEANS       [chap,  v 

the  interests  of  the  latter  country  having  special 
reference  to  the  alleged  ill-treatment  of  coolies, 
whilst  the  former's  interest  lay  in  procuring 
them  as  cheaply,  and  with  as  few  restrictions 
as  possible.  The  war  with  Chili  practically 
snufted  out  Peru,  at  all  events  so  far  as  any 
influence  in  China  was  concerned,  and  she  may 
be  regarded  for  the  present  as  non-existent  in 
Peking  councils. 

Brazil  (1880),  Mexico  (1900),  and  the  Congo 
State  (1898)  have  treaties  with  China,  but,  so 
far,  nothing  has  occurred  to  bring  any  of  these 
states  prominently  forward ;  in  each  case 
coolies  were  wanted  by  the  one  party,  and  it 
was  desired  by  the  other  to  secure  for  them 
decent  treatment.  Difficulties  arose  after  Presi- 
dent Diaz  ceased  his  long  firm  rule,  on  account 
of  Chinese  traders  receiving  ill-usage  at  the 
hands  of  rival  aspirants  or  their  followers  ;  but 
these  appear  to  have  been  reasonably  met  on 
both  sides. 

The  Swedes  established  an  East  India  Com- 
pany in  1627,  but  their  nationals  who  visited 
China  came  on  board  vessels  belonging  to  other 
countries.  A  Swedish  vessel  reached  Canton 
in  1731,  and  fifty  years  later  others  are  men- 
tioned. There  is  a  Swedo-Norwegian  treaty 
with  China,  and  Mr.  Carl  Bock  was  resident  in 
Peking  for  a  time  (1897-1898)  ;  but  since  the 
separation  of  1905  the  Scandinavian  interests, 
chiefly  shipping,  are  sufficiently  watched  over 
by  consuls-general  at  Shangliai  ;  there  has  never 
been  a  Norwegian  minister  at  Peking  so  far  as  I 
am  aware ;  but  Count  Wallenberg  seems  to 
have  been  there  for  many  years  (off  and  on)  as 
minister  for  Sweden. 

There  was  some  flutter  when  in  1889  the 
Sultan  decided  to  send  a  frigate  and  a  mission 
to  Japan.     The  reappearance  on  the  high  seas 


A.D.  1882-1915]     THE    BALKAN    POWERS  121 

and  in  Chinese  waters  of  the  Turks  so  dreaded  of 
old  was  a  highly  interesting  development.  They 
put  in  at  Pagoda  I.  for  refreshments,  and  there 
I  endeavoured  to  prove  to  the  gallant  com- 
mander that  he  was  a  Hiung-nu  in  disguise  ; 
but  the  luckless  Ertogrul  came  to  grief  on  the 
rocks  in  the  Inland  Sea,  and  the  fierce  Turks  had 
to  be  sent  home  as  "  distressed  mariners."  To 
add  local  colour  to  an  amusing  denoument,  the 
Japanese  man-of-war  which  took  the  men  home 
was  refused  free  admittance  through  the  Dar- 
danelles, and  had  to  "  get  ready  for  action." 

In  1882  the  Serbian  King  Milan  begged  the 
Chinese  Minister  in  France  to  hand  in  a  letter 
to  his  august  master  announcing  Serbia's  pro- 
motion to  kingly  rank.  Rumania  had  already 
set  Balkan  examples  in  1881,  when  two  separate 
missions  were  either  sent  (or  perhaps  locally 
commissioned)  to  announce  (1)  the  accession 
of  King  Charles,  and  (2)  his  promotion  to  royal 
status.  In  1915  the  death  of  King  Charles  and 
the  succession  of  King  Ferdinand  were  "  an- 
nounced." 

In  1902  "Great  Han"  (i.e.  "Imperial"  Corea) 
sent  resident  envoys  to  China,  and  exchanged 
certain  consuls;  but  of  course  these  amenities 
ceased  after  the  Japanese  had  ousted  all  foreign 
political  influence  from  Corea- — as  a  result  of  the 
Russo-Japanese  conflict. 

In  1915  the  newly  elected  President  of  Uruguay 
announced  his  accession. 


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CHAPTER    VI 

SIBERIA,    ETC. 

A  HISTORY  of  China's  foreign  relations  of  the 
most  sketchy  description  would  not  be  com- 
plete without  some  separate  and  connected 
account  of  the  Tartars  who  have  always  harassed 
her  from  the  north.  Just  as  the  hyperborean 
regions  of  Europe  have  only  become  a  cognate 
part  of  El  Rum,  or  the  Roman  Empire  system 
(for  that  is  really  in  a  civilising  sense  what 
modern  Europe  still  is)  since  Russia  took  them 
vigorously  in  hand,  so  the  hyperborean  regions 
of  Asia  have  only  become  a  cognate  part  of 
Hwa-hia,  or  the  Chinese  Empire  system,  since 
Russia  gave  them  their  bearings.  But  Russia 
is  in  possession  of  the  whole,  and  straddles  both 
systems  by  what  Roman  lawyers  called  occupatio, 
or  the  right  of  first  occupant.  If  we  omit  the 
tropics  and  South  Seas,  we  may  say  the  old 
northern  hemisphere  consists  of  two  groups  of 
400,000,000  souls  each,  the  one  being  Chinese 
or  Yellow  Man  civilisation,  the  other  European 
or  White  Man  civilisation.  Russia  now  caps 
and  overawes  the  pair,  and  is  the  first  great 
instance  in  the  world's  history  of  a  powerful 
empire  north  of  the  temperate  zone.  In  fact, 
the  Asiatic  conceptions  of  White  Czar  and  (so 
to  speak)  "  Yellow  "  Czar,  or  of  Chagan  Khan 
and  Bogdo  (Holy)  Khan,  express  the  same  misty 
idea  in  Tartar  minds  ;  all  the  rest  is  Feringiii,  or 

126 


B.C.  200]      FRANKS    AND    SCYTHIANS  127 

"  Frank,"  somewhere  beyond  the  White  Czar's 
domain.  The  Arabs  call  Europeans  Afranghi, 
or  Beni  Asfar,' — "  Sons  of  Yellow,"  i.e.  "  not 
dark,"  and  the  island  Greeks  still  have  an 
adjective  cfipdyKLKo^,  meaning,  in  effect,  "  con- 
tinental." Europe,  previously  to  the  blossom- 
ing forth  of  Russia,  knew  practically  nothing 
north  of  the  menacing  hordes  which  emerged 
from  the  east  along  beaten  lines,  and  gradually 
became  her  rulers,' — in  parts  at  least.  China, 
previously  to  the  same  event,  knew  practically 
nothing  north  of  the  hordes  which  moved  rest- 
lessly east  and  west  along  beaten  lines,  and  also 
gradually  became  her  rulers, — in  parts  at  least. 
The  historical  analogy  betw^een  the  Chinese  and 
Roman  Empires  is  nearly  complete  throughout 
the  whole  gamut  of  history. 

First  in  date  there  was  on  the  Chinese  side  the 
Empire  of  the  Hiung-nu,  which  bounded  and 
menaced  all  of  the  modern  realm  of  China,  from 
Corea  to  the  Pamir,  except  Tibet  and  the  Eighteen 
Provinces.  No  doubt  these  Hiung-nu  nomads 
knew  something  of  the  petty  hunting  tribes  in 
occupation  of  what  we  now'  call  Siberia  ;  but  the 
Chinese  knew  nothing  whatever  of  them  ;  unless 
in  a  very  vague  way,  and  by  name  only,  some- 
thing of  the  Kirghis  to  the  west  and  the  coast 
Tunguses  and  Ainos  to  the  east.  On  the  Western 
side  we  know  nothing  of  anyone  but "  Scythians," 
and  in  the  East  the  Chinese  kncAV  nothing  of 
anyone  but  Hiung-nu.  It  is  very  unlikely  that 
we  shall  ever  know  more  of  either  than  w^e  do 
now,  namely,  that  the  manners  of  the  two,  as 
described  to  us  by  the  Greeks  and  Chinese  re- 
spectively, were  nearly  identical.  The  Hiung-nu 
seem  to  have  swept  to  and  fro  then,  just  as  the 
roads  run  now,  by  the  northern  route  from 
Tsitsihar,  Urga,  Uliassutai,  Hi,  and  Tashkend  ; 
or  from  the  Yellow  River  bend  north  and  north- 


128  SIBERIA,    ETC.  [chap,  vi 

west  to  Urga  and  Uliassutai.     They  were  driven 
away  by  the  Chinese  from  the  southern  group 
of  roads,  from  Hami  to  the  Tarim  valley  and 
the  Pamirs,  at  a  comparatively  early  date  ;    but, 
during  the  greater  part  of  the  time— to  use  the 
words  of  Chinese  historians — "  the  Han  dynasty 
had  the  sagacity  to  keep  them  in  good  temper 
by    permitting    a   regular    border    trade."     The 
total   duration   of  their   empire,    whether   in   a 
united  or  divided  condition,  Avas,  roughly  speak- 
ing, 400  years,  from  200  B.C.  to  a.d.  200  ;    but 
although   the  greater   part   of  the   ruling   caste 
and  the  fighting  men  went  permanently  West, 
where  some  of  them  were  to  reappear  as  Avars, 
Huns,   etc.,  in  Europe,  they  did  not  expire  in 
China   without   a   final   struggle ;     indeed,    they 
ruled  as  Chinese  "  Emperors  "   of  limited  por- 
tions of  China,  after  most  of  their  race  had  gone 
West ;     and  in  any   case  they   founded  princi- 
palities   in    western    parts    subject    to    Chinese 
influence,    thus    enabling    us    to    connect    their 
ruling  families  with  the  Turks  without  a  serious 
break.     Professor   Hirth    of   Columbia   Univer- 
sity even  thought  and  perhaps  still  thinks  he 
had   unearthed   Attila's   son   Hernax   from   the 
Chinese  records  of  Sogd  : — but  I  am  not  in  the 
least  convinced. 

Then  comes  the  empire  of  the  more  westerly 
Tunguses,  who  were  only  known  to  China 
previously  to  a.d.  45  as  vassals  of  the  Hiung-nu. 
As  the  power  of  the  latter  was  broken  up  by 
China,  so  were  the  opportunities  for  separate 
development  improved  by  these  vassals  of  the 
declining  Khans.  The  new  empire  of  the  Tun- 
guses thus  formed  was  at  its  zenith  just  as  the 
last  of  the  genuine  uncivilised  Hiung-nu  dis- 
appeared (in  an  independent  political  sense)  for 
ever.  This  disappearance  from  China  is  coin- 
cident (allowing  them  time  to  travel)  with  the 


A.D.  L>00-1200]     NOMAD    AND    SEDENTARY      129 

sudden  appearance  of  the  Avars  and  Huns  in 
Europe  ;  it  is  only  reasonable  to  conclude,  there- 
fore, that  the  (Hiung-nu)  strangers,  who  pushed 
on  Goths,  Vandals,  and  other  tribes  before  them, 
were  the  identical  people  who,  as  we  know  for  a 
certainty,  had  gone  from  China  somewhere  West. 
But  the  later  group  of  Tungusic  Tartars,  although 
their  domination  occasionally  extended  as  far 
as  Hi,  never  had,  like  the  Hiung-nu,  any  real 
hold  on  the  Tarim  valley  or  Turkestan  ;  they 
are  specially  remarkable  for  having  settled  a 
number  of  Japanese  prisoners  in  Eastern  Mon- 
golia, where  their  power  was  most  in  evidence. 
The  Hiung-nu  had  probably  never  heard  of  the 
Japanese.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Toba  clan  of 
the  Tunguses  was  more  successful  than  the 
Hiung-nu  had  ever  been  as  a  sedentary  and  a 
civilised  ruling  house,  and  its  princes  adminis- 
tered North  China  as  emperors,  on  a  footing 
of  perfect  equality  with  the .  genuine  Chinese 
emperors  of  the  south,  for  200  years  (380-580). 
But  this  preoccupation  with  Chinese  affairs  left 
the  other  and  wilder  Tartars  time  to  counter- 
develop  once  more ;  and  although  the  Toba 
dynasty  of  North  China  conducted  several 
successful  campaigns  against  both  their  now  less 
civilised  kinsmen  and  against  the  remains  of 
the  Hiung-nu  tribes',  they  were  never  able  to 
assert  themselves  as  an  effective  nomad  horse- 
back power,  and  at  the  same  time  to  sit  com- 
fortably on  an  imperial  throne.  The  Mongols 
previous  to  Kublai  (Genghiz,  Ogdai,  Kayuk, 
and  Mangu)  were  the  only  ones  that  ever  suc- 
ceeded in  this  double  task  ;  and  so,  even  with 
the  powerful  Mongols,  a  double  role  did  not  last 
very  long,  for  Kublai  was,  after  his  return  from 
Yiin  Nan  and  his  accession  to  the  throne, 
simply  the  sedentary  and  personally  unwarlike 
Emperor   of  China  ;    the  Tartars,   if  not  inde- 


180  SIBERIA,   ETC.  [chap,  vi 

pendent,  were  all  more  or  less  rebellious  vassals 
under  disloyal  relatives  of  his.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising, therefore,  that  when  the  Toba  Tunguses 
eight  centuries  before  Kublai  took  to  the 
comforts  of  civilisation,  a  mixed  nomad  empire 
developed  itself  once  more  out  of  the  leavings 
of  the  Hiung-nu  and  Tungusic  "  horseback 
dominations." 

The  very  name  of  this  third  great  ruling  caste 
of  nomads  is  exceedingly  unsatisfactory  ;  the 
words  Juju,  J  we- j  we,  or  Jeujen  convey  to  us 
no  hint  whatever  such  as  we  can  gain,  or  at 
least  imagine,  from  the  earlier  words  Hiung-nu 
(Huns,  or  "Hiin  slaves")  andTung-hu  (Tunguz,  or 
"East  Tartars  "  ).  Following  a  Chinese  practice 
which  prevails  to  this  day,  the  Toba  Emperor,  no 
doubt  advised  by  Chinese  pedants,  thought  he 
would  improve  this  apparently  native  word  into 
the  bastard  sound  J  wan- j  wan,  which  is  stated 
to  have  meant  "  wrigglers."  There  is  no  evi- 
dence to  show  that  the  units  of  their  fighting 
power  were  more  Hiung-nu  than  Tunguz,  and 
such  evidence  as  there  is  of  a  ruling  caste  is 
decidedly  in  favour  of  a  Hiung-nu  rather  than  a 
Tungusic  origin ;  there  are  even  very  faint 
indications  that  they  might  have  been  Suomi, 
or  Finns.  At  any  rate,  there  seems  to  be  no 
justification  whatever  for  concluding,  as  Euro- 
pean writers  have  done,  that  the  Jeujen  were 
the  Avars  :  it  is  almost  impossible  that  they 
can  have  been  so.  What  is  quite  certain  is 
that  they  had  amongst  their  vassals,  quite  close 
to  the  Chinese  frontier,  in  or  near  the  region 
where  money  was  made  from  the  iron  trade  in 
220  B.C.,  a  Hiung-nu  tribe  called  "  Turk." 
These  Turks  worked  as  ironmasters  for  the 
Jeujen,  and  subsequently,  when  they  had 
generated  strength  sufficient  to  assist  them- 
selves, rose  against  and  annihilated  the  power 


A.D.  550-650]      THE   TURKS    AND    SIBERIA     131 

of  their  suzerains.  There  is  nothing  to  show 
that  the  dominion  of  these  Jeujen  ever  extended 
west  even  so  far  as  IH,  then  occupied  by  a  race 
called  "  Yiieban,"  who,  indeed  (if  we  accept  the 
evidence  of  etymology  at  all),  may  well  be  the 
"  Eban,"  or  "  Evar," — in  other  words,  a  branch 
of  the  Ephthalites,  as  the  Chinese  seem  to  make 
out/  The  chief  struggles  of  the  Jeujen  were 
with  the  "  High  Carts,"  or  the  later  Ouigours, 
of  the  Lake  Baikal  region. 

After  the  crushing  of  the  Jeujen  came  the 
empire  of  the  Turks,  touching  which  we  not 
only  have  the  most  precise  Chinese  accounts, 
but  also  a  number  of  important  Turkish  and 
Ouigour  inscriptions,  discovered  within  the  past 
generation  in  the  Irtish,  Orkhon,  and  Tola 
valleys,  and  confirming  the  Chinese  accounts. 
The  first  stage  of  Turkish  rule  lasted  from  about 
the  year  560  to  630,  when  the  Chinese,  after 
incessant  warring,  succeeded  in  taking  the 
Supreme  Khan  captive.  For  fifty  years  after 
that  event,  Chinese  political  influence  was 
dominant  all  the  way  from  Corea  to  the  frontiers 
of  Persia  ;  but  still  there  is  not  in  the  whole  of 
Chinese  history  one  trace  of  a  single  definite 
name  to  show  that  they  had  any  definite  know- 
ledge of  what  we  call  Siberia.  There  are  vague 
indications  in  the  far  north  of  savage  tribes 
using  snow-shoes,  deer-carts,  dog-carts,  and  of 

^  It  would  be  well  for  students  who  take  a  scientific  interest  in 
etymology  to  note  that  in  an  expanded  Chinese  dictionary  partly 
based  upon  Dr.  S.  W.  Williams'  earlier  work,  and  published  a 
quarter  of  a  century  ago  by  my  former  colleague,  Professor 
H.  A.  Giles  of  Cambridge,  I  have  given  the  actual  sounds  in  eight 
dialects  of  every  important  word  in  the  language :  besides  their 
Corean,  Annamese,  and  Japanese  sounds.  I  have  also  con- 
tributed thereto,  by  way  of  extended  preface,  a  philological 
essay  explaining  the  "  Grimm's  Law  "  of  the  Far  East,  and  the 
construction  of  Chinese.  This  knowledge  is  indispensable  to 
anyone  who  ventures  an  opinion  upon  points  connected  with 
Chinese  etymology  ;  but  of  course  it  may  be  acquired  by  separate 
study  independently  of  my  pioneer  effort. 

11 


132  SIBERIA,    ETC.  [chap,  vi 

other  matters  connected  with  them,  suggestive 
of  Samoyedes,  Ostiaks,  and  Chukchis  ;  but  if 
the  Turks  then  under  more  or  less  direct  Chinese 
rule  had  any  knowledge  of  insignificant  peoples 
north  of  what  are  at  this  day  the  boundaries  of 
the  Chinese  Dominion,  they  kept  that  know- 
ledge to  themselves,  or  never  told  the  Chinese 
enough  to  make  it  worth  while  recording  any- 
thing. In  connection  with  the  western  branch 
of  the  Turks,  and  especially  the  Tiirgas,  the 
Chinese  histories  make  numerous  allusions  to 
Persians,  Syrians,  Ephthalites,  Kirghis,  and 
other  Western  peoples,  about  whom  they  had 
very  scant  information ;  but  there  is  never 
anything  to  show  that  organised  states  existed 
in  Siberia  beyond  the  Amur,  Baikal,  or  Balkash. 
Probably  the  Chinese  never  pushed  up  thither 
because  the  length  of  the  nights  was  so  alarming 
and  it  was  so  cold  :  several  times  the  Chinese 
mention  with  astonishment  the  long  days  of  a 
northern  summer.  The  accounts  given  of  the 
second  (main  or  eastern)  Turkish  Empire, 
founded  by  Kutlug  Khan,  are  even  more  inter- 
esting and  precise  than  those  of  the  first.  It 
endured  from  about  680  to  743,  when  it  was 
replaced  by  the  domination  of  a  kindred  race 
called  the  Ouigours.  These  people,  however, 
never  exercised  anything  like  the  same  effective 
dominion  that  their  kinsmen  the  Hiung-nu  and 
the  Turks  had  done  before  them,  and  they 
decidedly  showed  more  settled  inclinations,  and 
more  of  a  taste  for  science,  art,  and  religion  : 
by  degrees  they  seem  to  have  voluntarily  aban- 
doned the  Urga  region  north  of  the  Desert  alto- 
gether, and  to  have  settled  in  what  are  now  the 
western  parts  of  Kan  Suh  province.  Chavannes 
and  Pelliot,  in  their  illuminating  little  work  on 
the  Manichaeans  already  alluded  to,  have  thrown 
much  new  light  upon  Ouigour  civilisation. 


A.D.  800-1200]     TUNGUSIC    DEVELOPMENTS     13.3 

Meanwhile  the  Tunguses,  corresponding  to  the 
ancient  Toba  rulers,   and  also  perhaps  to  the 
later  Mongols  (before  they  became  imbued  with 
a  strong  Turkish  admixture),  or  to  the  modern 
Solons,   found  opportunity  to  develop   a  great 
political  power  in  the  Far  East.     There  is  reason 
to  believe  that  their  rule  included,  at  least  for 
tribute  purposes,   a  great  many  tribes  beyond 
the   Amur,    as   also   all   the   Fish-skin   Tartars, 
Goldi,  Manchus,  and  other  unmistakable  peoples 
of  Tungusic  race,  right  up  to  the  Pacific  Ocean 
and  the  mountains  of  Corea  :   but  we  cannot  yet 
identify  some,  if  any,  of  the  tribal  names  by  the 
light  of  any  ethnological  indications  now  sur- 
viving.    We  are  therefore,  so  far  as  our  inquiry 
is  concerned,  still  left  in  the  same  historical  posi- 
tion :    by  the  light  of  anything  that  can  be  dis- 
covered in  Chinese  history,  the  Ouigours  ruled 
the  west  whilst  the  Cathayans  or  Kitans  ruled 
the  east  of  what  is  now  Chinese  Mongolia  ;  the 
first  never  pushing  their  knowledge,  not  to  say 
their  influence,  beyond  the  Kirghis,  the  second 
never  hearing  of  much  beyond  the  Amur  and 
Lake   Baikal.     Then    come    the    Niichens,     or 
genuine  eastern  Tunguses  totally  unaffected  by 
Mongol  or  Turkish  admixtures.     They  are  prob- 
ably much  the  same  people  as   those  who  for 
200  years  governed  the  little-known  kingdom  of 
Puh-hai  (720-920),  which  had  political  relations 
with   Japan  as  well  as  with  China.     They  also 
co-existed  as    a   political  power  along  with  the 
Ouigours,  and  with  the   so-called   Kara-Kitans 
who    fled   west    when    the   Niichens   broke   up 
the  original  Cathayan  power.     And  so  on  until 
we  come  to  Genghiz  Khan,  no  part  of  whose 
tribal  habitat  was  much  farther  north  than  the 
River  Shilka,  if  indeed  so  far.     Genghiz,  as  we 
know,  swept  the  whole  zone  between  Siberia  (as 
we  now  understand  the  word),  Tibet,  and  China, 


134  SIBERIA,    ETC.  [chap,  vi 

It  is  in  the  tliirteenth  century  that  we  hear 
for  the  first  time  in  the  Chinese  records  inteUigible 
accounts  of  Kipchaks,  Alans  or  Azes,  Bulgars, 
and  Russians.  A  great  deal  of  interest  attaches, 
in  connection  with  the  Mongol  inroads,  to  the 
Hungarians,  who  belong  to  the  same  souche  as 
the  Finns  :  so,  at  least,  Professor  Nordenskjold 
told  me  when  he  visited  Canton  in  1879,  and  so 
I  have  since  satisfied  myself  more  precisely. 
The  Bulgars  of  Genghiz'  time  were  also  partly 
Finnish,  at  least  so  Bretschneider  thought ;  but 
they  have  adopted  the  Slav  tongue.  One 
extensive  race,  called  the  Wusun,  disappeared 
utterly  from  the  Hi  region  shortly  after  the 
Yiieh-chi,  driven  west  by  the  Hiung-nu,  gave  way 
before  these  same  Wusun,  and,  turning  south 
to  Bactria,  founded  the  "  Indo-Scythian "  or 
Ephthalite  dominions  in  the  Pan  jab  and  Persian 
regions,  as  already  explained.  Some  modern 
Chinese  writers  have  endeavoured  to  identify 
these  missing  Wusun  with  the  Russians  ;  but 
this  is  not  likely,  for  the  Russian  language 
appears  to  be  pure  Aryan  ;  that  I  can  see  for 
myself.  There  is  no  evidence  to  connect  the 
Wusun  with  the  Hungarians  ;  but  the  possi- 
bility of  it  must  not  be  ignored  ; — in  fact,  Csoma 
the  Hungarian,  about  ninety  years  ago,  went 
on  a  hunt  all  over  High  Asia  in  search  of  the 
original  Madjar  language ;  and  the  late  M. 
Kossuth  gave  encouragement  to  my  Hungarian 
friend  Nemati  Kalman,  who  bespoke  my  co- 
operation on  the  same  quest  :  the  Chinese  men- 
tion the  Madjars  quite  plainly  (Ma-cha)  in 
Genghiz'  time.  I  cannot  recall  any  other 
instance  of  the  utter  disappearance  of  a  con- 
siderable nation  from  Chinese  ken,  unless  it  be 
that  of  the  Yiieban  (also  from  Hi).  The  dominion 
of  the  Mongols  over  Russia,  and  to  a  certain 
extent  Hungary,  seems  to  be  the  first  connect- 


A.D.  1200-1400]      NORTH  SIBERIA  KNOWN        135 

ing  link  forged  in  the  chain  which  was  ulti- 
mately to  join  Western  Europe  with  Kanichatka. 
The  hold  of  the  Mongols  over  Europe  and  over 
Asia  weakened  simultaneously.  In  the  West 
the  Novgorod  Republic  liad  opportunity  to 
develop,  and  in  the  East  China  was  able  to  shake 
herself  free.  The  Ostiak  tribes  of  the  Obi 
(Beresof  and  Tobolsk)  had  paid  tribute  to  Nov- 
gorod before  Novgorod  paid  it  to  the  Mongols  ; 
but  if  the  Mongols  ever  heard  of  the  Ostiaks, 
they  do  not  seem  to  have  thought  it  worth 
while  to  interfere  in  a  question  of  such  jejune 
importance  to  themselves.  The  brother  of 
Haithon  of  Armenia,  besides  Rubruquis  and 
some  of  the  other  European  pilgrims  to  the 
Mongol  Court,  would  seem  to  have  first  sug- 
gested to  Europeans  the  existence  of  a  farther 
or  Northern  Siberia.  The  Mongols  of  China 
kept  up  relations  with  the  Kipchaks,  Russians, 
and  Azes  almost  until  their  fall  (1368)  ;  but  the 
Ming  dynasty  had  little  to  do,  in  a  friendly 
co-operative  way,  even  with  Manchuria  or 
Mongolia  so  near,  let  alone  with  the  tribes  of  the 
remote  western  steppes.  The  Eleuth  or  Kal- 
muck power  accordingly  now  developed ;  and 
Chinese  history  totally  ceases  to  be  authoritative 
on  northern  nations  from  that  day  to  this. 
The  Manchus  knew  of  no  people  farther  north 
than  the  Kazaks,  or  Turkified  Kirghis,  half  of 
whom  are  now  Russian  and  half  Chinese  in 
a  political  sense.  The  former  Mongol  influence 
over  the  Kipchaks  ^  in  Ming  times,  therefore, 
passed  from  China  to  Tamerlane,  who  was 
treating  with  Kipchak  envoys  at  Otrar,  and  even 
contemplating  an  attack  upon  China,  when  he 
died  there  in  1406.  The  word  "  Sibir  "is  about 
this  time  mentioned  for  the  first  time  as  part 
of  the  realm  of  Toctamish  the  Kipchak.  Dr. 
Albert  Wirth,  who  collected  and  sixteen  years 


136  SIBERIA,    ETC.  [chap,  vi 

ago  spontaneously  sent  to  me  many  valuable 
data  touching  this  period,  says  that  a  Bavarian 
named  Schiltberger,  who  was  there  as  a  prisoner 
amongst  the  Tartars  at  the  time  Tamerlane  died, 
speaks  of  "  Issibur,  where  carts  and  sledges  are 
harnessed  to  large  dogs." 

In  1465-9  Ivan  the  Great  annexed  Novgorod, 
and  threw  off  the  Kipchak  yoke  ;    so  that  the 
country  of  Sibir,  practically  the  modern  Tobolsk, 
became  almost  independent.     But  by  the  time 
of  Ivan  the  Terrible  (1557)  the  Sibir  people,  or 
"  Yugurs,"    had   been   compelled   to   send   him 
their    usual    tribute    of    minivers    and    sables. 
Modern  Chinese,  in  referring  to  these  events,  say 
(but  do  not  explain  at  what  date  or  on  what 
authority)    that   the    Russians    had   four   great 
provinces — Ki-yu    (Kiev),    the    "old    tribe"; 
Moskwa,  the  "  new  tribe  "  ;    K'a-shan  (Kazan)  ; 
and  Si-pi-r  (Siberia),  which  last  was  subdivided 
into   four.     At   present,    according  to   Russian 
official   documents,    there    are    2,000    or    so    of 
"  Turalinians "    between    the    Tobol    and    the 
Irtish,  and  there  are  26,000  Ostiaks  in  Tobolsk, 
Tomsk,    and    the     Yenissei.      There    are    also 
Chuvashes  and  Voguls  in  Tobolsk,  but  which  of 
these  tribes  represents  the  "  Yugurs  "  of  their 
sixteenth-century  "  Sibir  "  I  cannot  say.     Any- 
way, Ivan  and  his  son  Theodore  went  on  with 
their  eastern  advance  until  they  had  conquered 
the  Bashkirs  and  Tobol-Tartars.     The  Chinese 
record  that  between  1522  and  1567  the  Russians 
conquered  the  Khan  of  "  K'u-ch'eng,"  and  re- 
moved him  to  the  north  of  the  Altai  Mountains, 
thus  bringing  themselves  into  contact  with  the 
Tata  (Mongols)  and  Wala  (Eleuth). 

It  was  just  at  this  time  (1579)  that  the  "  Stro- 
gonoff,"  or  half -Tartar  m.erchant  guilds  of  East 
Russia,  engaged  the  services  of  Yarmak  and 
7,000  of  his  Cossacks  to  further  their  interests 


A.D.  1580-1620]    K'U-CH'ENG  OR  KOZUM  KAN    137 

in  Tartar  regions  ;  but  after  three  or  four  years 
of  skirmishing  and  scuffling  with  the  troops  of 
"  Koziim  Kan,"  Yarmak  perished  by  drowning, 
either  in  the  River  Irtish  or  in  one  of  its  tribu- 
taries (1584).  In  1591  "  Koziim  Kan "  was 
defeated,  and  again  in  1598,  when  he  fled  for 
refuge  to  the  Kabnucks'  camp  near  Lake 
Dzaisang  (north  of  the  Altai);  but  the  Kal- 
mucks in  turn  chased  him  away  to  the  Kirghis. 
Here,  manifestly,  the  Chinese  and  Russian 
accounts  agree  fairly  well  in  the  main  facts.  The 
doings  described  thus  brought  the  Russians  into 
contact  with  that  branch  of  the  Mongols  called 
the  Kalmucks' — styled  by  the  Chinese  Eleuths' — 
who  had  meanwhile  had  time  to  gather  strength 
and  found  a  dominion  in  the  region  of  Uliassutai, 
Hi,  and  Tarbagatai,  which  dominion  included 
many  Kirghis  and  Turkish  tribes.  The  pre- 
datory Cossacks  sent  missions  to  the  ruler  of  this 
powerful  state  in  the  name  of  the  Russian  Czar, 
who,  like  a  wise  man,  secured  all  he  could  get 
for  nothing  but  the  taking,  and  ran  no  risks. 

It  so  happens  that  there  is  a  hiatus  in  Chinese 
history  at  this  time,  and  the  Manchu  Emperor 
K'ienlung  himself  admits  that  between  1450  and 
1650  the  Chinese  knew  little  m.ore  of  the  Eleuths 
than  that  they  often  joined  other  Mongols  in 
raiding  the  frontiers  :  they  do  not  even  know 
the  names  of  the  khans.  However,  in  1616  the 
Ataman  Wassili  relates  what  happened  to  his 
mission  sent  in  the  name  of  the  Czar  to  the 
Altyn-Kan  (Golden  Khan),  at  w^iose  Court  he 
met  also  an  envoy  from  the  Yellow  Czar  (Em- 
peror of  China)' — probably  the  chief  of  as 
"  bogus  "  a  mission  as  his  own.  The  Khan  was 
then  encamped  on  the  Kem-chik,  or  "  Little 
Kem,"  i.e.  on  the  present  Russo-Chinese  frontier, 
due  north  of  Cobdo.  The  Russians  say  that  the 
Altyn    Khan    promised    to    get    their    trading 


138  SIBERIA,   ETC.  [chap,  vi 

missions  through  to  China,  and  that  the  Chinese 
even  sent  a  mission  to  them  in  1619  ;   but,  if  so, 
the  Chinese  are  quite  unaware  of  it,  and  the  very 
name  of  Russia  was  to  all  appearances  totally 
unknown  in  Peking  at  that  time.     The  Russians 
or   Cossacks   pushed   on   to   Lake   Baikal,    and 
received   in    1638    their    first   tea   through   the 
agency  of  this  Altyn  Khan,  the  history  of  whose 
successors,   until  they   were   destroyed   by   the 
Chinese,  I  have  already  published  from  Manchu 
history.'     By   1643   the   Russians   had   already 
reached  the  Sea  of  Okhotsk.     After  all,  they  had 
only  to  follow  the   compass,   so  far  as  North 
Siberia  was  concerned  ;    for  there  was  not,  and 
there  is  scarcely  even  now,  a  genuine  native  town 
in  the  place  ;    nor  had  the  scant  population  of 
trappers,    fishers,    and    hunters    any    desire    or 
motive  to  resist  their  advance,  which  therefore 
required  little  courage.     The  true  interest  lies 
in  the  story  of  their  pushing  their  way  down  the 
Shilka  and  the  Amur.     These  adventures  have 
been  related  over  and  over  again,  and  there  is 
very  little  new  for  me  to  say  here.     In  1654 
they  attempted  to  explore  the  Sungari,  but  the 
Cossack  Stepanhoff  was  killed  by  the  Manchu 
troops  in  1658  ;    and  this  event  is  also  recorded 
by  the  Chinese.     Then  there  was  a  long  conflict 
for  the  possession  of  Yaksa,  or  Albazin  ;    but  in 
1689  the  Russians,  by  the  Treaty  of  Nerchinsk, 
agreed  to  abandon  it,  and  also  both  banks  of  the 
Amur.     From  that  time   to    1855,  when  Mura- 
vieff  "  Amurski  "   obtained  the  Czar's  permis- 
sion to  annex  the  Amur,  the  Russians  remained 
on  very  quiet  and  inoffensive  terms  with  China, 
trading  only   at   Kiachta  and   Tarbagatai.     In 
1858   the  Aigun  Treaty,  necessitated   by   these 

^  "  Tlie  Kalmucks,"  China  Review,  vol.  xxiii.  "  The  Eleuths," 
China  Review,  vols,  xv,  xvi.  See  also  previous  references  on 
pages  36-40. 


A.D.  700-1860]     TIBET,    NEPAUL,    MANIPUR     139 

new  acquisitions,  loosely  defined  the  Ussuri 
boundaries  ;  but  in  1860,  by  the  Peking  Treaty, 
Ignatieff  secured  the  doubtful  part  east  of  the 
Ussuri ;  and  now  Russia,  biding  her  time,  has 
improved  her  opportunities,  slipped  quietly  in, 
and  dominates  North  Manchuria. 

The  early  history  of  Tibet  (700-900)  is  bound 
up  with  that  of  the  early  Siamese  empire  of 
Nan-chao.  For  a  time  the  Gialbos  threatened 
the  existence  of  China,  and,  as  it  was,  asserted 
their  equality,  obtained  princesses,  and  made 
treaties  of  reciprocity  ;  they  also  forcibly  occu- 
pied Kan  Suh  and  Chinese  Turkestan  for  a  num- 
ber of  years,  right  up  to  Lake  Balkash.  During 
the  Five  Dynasty,  or  Anarchy  Period  (904-960), 
there  were  a  few  missions  to  China,  but  practi- 
cally Tibet  was  an  unknown  quantity ;  and 
throughout  the  Sung  dynasty  (960-1260)  the 
diplomatic  relations  were  only  fitful.  During 
Mongol  and  Ming  times  Tibet  was  under  military 
supervision,  but  enjoyed  internal  independence. 
After  the  Manchus  came  to  power  and  overawed 
the  Lamas,  their  Resident,  except  on  one  or  two 
occasions  when  China  had  to  assert  herself, 
for  a  century  and  a  half  occupied  a  position  in 
Tibet  as  modest  and  retiring,  but  as  influential, 
as  that  of  our  Resident  in  Nepaul.  Nepaul, 
which  was  forced  by  China  to  live  on  friendly 
terms  with  Tibet,  is  still  tributary  to  China, 
and  sends  trading  missions  ;  but  she  prudently 
avoids  raising  political  questions,  and  meanwhile 
supplies  us  with  some  of  our  best  mercenary 
troops,  at  the  same  time  enjoying  complete 
independence.  Manipur,  or  Kase  as  the  Chinese 
call  it,  was  only  known  to  the  Manchus  for  a 
short  time  during  the  wars  with  the  Burmese 
king  Alompra's  successors  :  there  is  no  mention 
of  such  a  place  in  the  records  of  any  previous 
dynasty.      China   has   never   in   modern   times 


140  SIBERIA,    ETC.  [chap,  vi 

had  the  faintest  pohtical  influence  in  India, 
though  all  five  kings  of  the  Hindoo  states  sent 
missions  to  China  about  1,000  years  ago.  True, 
in  the  middle  of  the  seventh  century  the  warlike 
founder  of  the  T'ang  dynasty,  with  the  assist- 
ance of  Nepaul,  carried  punitive  war  success- 
fully upon  a  king  of  North  India,  but  there  the 
matter  dropped  :  the  Ming  dynasty  800  years 
later  had  shipping  relations  with  the  Indian 
coasts  ;  but  none  the  less  India  has  never  fallen 
within  China's  political  sphere.  The  Mongols, 
Mings,  and  Manchus  have  each  in  turn  sent 
expeditions  to  Burma,  but  China's  political 
influence  has  never  continued  for  long  there 
either.  Siam  has  never  been  invaded  either  by 
land  or  sea,  but  from  the  date  of  her  moving 
down  definitely  to  Ayuthia* — say  a.d.  1200 — 
from  the  Shan  states  (Old  Thai  ^),  south  of  Yiin 
Nan,  until  1853,  she  always  recognised  China  as 
a  nominal  suzerain,  for  reasons  of  trade  policy. 
The  Shan  states — those  not  belonging  to  Burma 
— and  also  Annam,  have  at  irregular  intervals 
been  either  ruled  indirectly  by  the  Chinese  or 
have  been  nominally  tributary  to  them.  The 
same  thing  may  be  said  of  Corea,  but  with  less 
irregularity.  Japan  has  never  been  in  any  way 
conquered  by  either  Chinese  or  Tartars,  nor 
forced  to  do  anything ;  she  has  occasionally 
sent  polite  missions,  but  it  is  only  the  Chinese 
who  call  them  "  tributary  "  ones.  I  just  men- 
tion these  points  in  order  to  complete  the  circuit 
of  the  Eighteen  Provinces,  and  to  bring  the 
reader  back  to  the  other  side  of  Siberia. 

1  See  p.  29.  The  Old  and  New  Tai  or  Thai  (=  free)  races  differ 
in  using  or  in  omitting  the  aspirate,  as  I  ascertained  on  the  spot 
in  1888,  from  Mr.  Gushing  and  other  Shan  scholars.  The  History 
of  Nan-chao  makes  use  of  this  national  word  Tai,  and  explains 
quite  clearly  how  the  Early  Siamese  were  under  the  religious 
influence  of  Magadha. 


CHAPTER    VII 

MODERN   TRADE 

It  is  not  necessary  to  dwell  upon  the  old  co-hong 
trade  at  Canton.  The  former  Factory  site  of 
the  "  Thirteen  Hongs  "  is  now  principally  occu- 
pied by  a  large  foreign  "  hong  "  about  two  fur- 
longs below  the  island  settlement  of  Shamien. 
Trade  with  the  East  India  Company  nominally 
began  in  1680,  and  all  privileges  continued  until 
1783,  when  there  were  certain  modifications. 
In  1834  exclusive  rights  entirely  ceased.  Life 
and  trade  at  Canton  a  century  and  a  quarter 
ago  have  been  vividly  described  ^  by  Dr.  S.  W. 
Williams,  who  resided  there  before  the  Factory 
was  destroyed  in  1856,  and  was  frequently  U.S. 
Charge  d' Affaires  at  Peking  after  the  second  or 
Anglo-French  war.  The  merchants  passed  a 
confined,  ceremonious,  and  reserved  existence, 
entirely  in  the  hands  of  their  fiadors  and  com- 
pradores  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  Chinese  co- 
hong  on  the  other.  No  wives  were  allowed,  and 
even  burials  had  to  take  place  at  Whampoa, 
twelve  miles  down  the  river.  It  was  only  in 
1828  that  the  British  Superintendent  first  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  his  wife  up  :  it  will  be  remem- 
bered that  this  misogynist  policy  had  already 
been  followed  2,000  years  before  in  the  case  of 
"  fem.ale  animals,"  the  idea  in  both  cases  evi- 
dently  being   against   increase   and   multiplica- 

1  China  Review,  1876-7. 
141 


142  MODERN   TRADE  [chap,  vii 

tioii.  British  trade  was,  of  course,  the  largest 
of  all ;  lead  (for  packing  tea)  and  woollens  were 
the  chief  imports  (no  specie,  no  cotton  fabrics) 
from  England,  opium  from  India,  and  the  usual 
"  Straits  "  produce  picked  up  from  the  Dutch 
colonies  visited  by  our  ships  en  route.  Tea  and 
silk  were  the  main  exports  then  as  (largely) 
now.  The  British  tea  consum.ption  in  1795  was 
14,000,000  lbs.  a  year,  more  than  one  half  of 
which  total  wa.s  smuggled  by  foreign  ships  from 
Canton,  operating  in  the  English  Channel. 

The  Treaty  of  Nanking  (1842)  opened  four  new 
ports,  and  abrogated  all  these  restrictive  rules 
about  residence.  Afterwards,  as  has  been  ex- 
plained under  the  heading  of  "  Europeans,"  by 
the  Tientsin  treaties  nine,  and  by  the  Chefoo 
Convention  again  four  additional  ports  Avere 
thrown  open  to  foreign  trade.  The  various 
wars  and  complications  that  have  harassed 
China  up  to  date  have  led  to  the  total  number 
of  ports  being  increased  to  forty-seven,  so  far  as 
the  Foreign  Customs  is  concerned.  In  the  year 
1864  the  British  or  direct  trade  had  already 
reached  101,000,000  taels,  or  ounces  of  silver, 
and  the  total,  including  other  countries  and 
coast  trade,  was  260,000,000  taels  :  at  that  date 
the  whole  trade  of  Japan,  America,  and  other 
foreign  countries  only  amounted  in  all  to  10 
per  cent,  of  the  British  trade,  including,  of  course, 
British  colonies.  I  proposed  in  the  1901  edition 
of  this  book  to  take  the  year  1880,  as  a  central 
point,  between  the  period  when  legations  were 
first  established  at  Peking  in  1861  and  the  year 
1900  (that  is,  the  trade  of  1899),  in  order  to  survey 
rapidly  the  condition  of  foreign  commerce  in 
China.  I  now  propose  to  compare  these  totals 
with  the  trade  of  1913,  that  is,  the  trade  before 
the  great  war  queered  the  pitch.  As  the  gold 
value  of-  the  silver  tael  is  still  only  about  half 


A.D.  1880-1913]    STATISTICS    FOR    PERIODS      143 

what  it  was  in  1880,  and  subject  to  violent  aber- 
rations at  that,  I  think  it  better  to  give  the  totals 
in  silver,  as  nearly  as  I  can;  for,  although  this  plan 
may  suggest  to  us  a  false  idea  of  the  gold  cost  of 
produce  to  England  and  Europe,  it  is  the  only 
true  way  to  form  a  notion  of  the  actual  wealth, 
measured  by  the  standards  of  silver  and  copper, 
which  is  taken  out  of  China,  for  the  unit  of 
"  Exchange  "  in  Shanghai  is  the  rate  for  tele- 
graphic  transfer  on  London. 

DIRECT  TRADE,  EXCLUDING  COAST  TRADE  AND  FOREIGN 
TRADE  IN  CHINESE  JUNKS  ;  ALSO  EXCLUDING  RE- 
EXPORTS   ABROAD 


Nineteen  Ports.       Thirty-two  Ports.  ;  rorty-seven  Ports. 


1880.  I  1899.                           1913. 

British  Empire       .    :     122,600,000  ;  286,200,000  402,000,000 

Japanese  Empire    .            5,700,000  53,100,000  185,000,000 

other  countries      .    i       30,000,000  '  113,000,000  403,000,000 


158,300,000         452,300,000     i     990,000,000 


From  the  above  summary  it  w411  be  seen  that 
if  between  1880  and  1899  the  total  direct  trade 
nearly  trebled  itself,  between  1900  and  1913  the 
same  direct  trade  about  doubled  itself;  and  the 
Japanese  share,  magnified  nearly  ten  times  during 
its  pioneer  development,  has  more  than  tripled 
itself  again  during  its  riper  development.  Look 
at  it  which  way  we  Avill,  there  is  no  reason  to  fear 
that  Great  Britain  is  going  to  the  wall,  for  we  are 
still  equal  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  barring  Japan. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  England  no  longer 
takes  the  larger  half  of  China  tea,  as  she  did  in 
1880,  which  deficit  is  more  than  compensated  for 
by  much  greater  cargoes  of  tea  brought  from 
India,  the  paid  value  of  which  remains  in  our 
own  empire  instead  of  going  to  that  of  China.  It 
must  also  be  remembered  that  the  Russian 
and  Japanese  land  trade  by  way  of  Manchuria 


144  MODERN   TRADE  [chap,  vii 

has  introduced  quite  new  elements,  and  that  the 
loss  of  Kiao  Chou  to  Germany  in  1914  must 
again  seriously  modify  the  position  of  affairs 
as  existing  in  1913. 

Out  of  the  above  trade,  and  of  the  home  or 
coast    trade    in    foreign    or    Chinese    steamers, 
which  is  equal  in  volume  to  over  once  and  a 
half  the  total  of  the  foreign  trade,  the  Chinese 
Government    in    1880    derived    a    revenue    of 
14,250,000    taels,    against    26,660,000    taels    in 
1899,  and  43,900,000  taels  in  1913.     It  will  be 
noticed  that,  whilst  direct  trade  has  trebled  and 
again  doubled,  the  revenue  on  the  whole  trade  has 
not  kept  pace :  the  reason  is  not  very  obvious ; 
but  as,  owing  to  fluctuation  in  exchange  rates 
and  market  values,  the  charges  on  imports  have 
for    many    years    only    averaged    3    per    cent., 
instead  of  the  5  per  cent,  average  usually  sup- 
posed to  be  levied,  that  fact  (which  of  course  in 
itself  requires  further  specialist  explanation)  may 
partly  account  for  it.      Then,    again,   we   must 
consider  the  British  bankers,  careful  definition 
of  what   are    called    "  invisible  imports "    and 
"invisible  exports,"  both  of  which  or  neither  of 
which   must   be    counted.     Probably   a   further 
reason  is  that  the  specific  duties  on  compara- 
tively high-paying  articles  such  as  tea  have  for 
many  years  steadily  declined  with  the  trade  in 
those    staples ;     whilst    the    specific    duties    on 
various    cheap    export    commodities    (formerly 
neglected,  but  now  aggregating  huge  totals)  are 
very  low,   and  therefore  do  not  advance  pace 
by  pace  with  the  volume  of  the  trade.     Rice, 
for  instance  (though  not  exportable  from  China 
except   under    diplomatically   arranged    special 
conditions),  is   sometimes    "  exported  "    by  the 
million   hundredweight   from    one   port   to   the 
other  at  a  very  low  likin  charge,  or  even  free 
altogether.      However,    in    1902    the    Mackay 


A.D.  1880-1913]     COTTON  AND  YARN  TRADE    145 

treaty,  which  aimed  amongst  other  desirable 
financial  reforms  at  the  abolition  of  likin  in 
exchange  for  a  substantial  increase  in  import 
duties,  did  attempt  to  grapple  with  this  ques- 
tion, and,  as  I  write,  I  observe  that  the  atten- 
tion of  President  Li  has  once  more  been  called, 
by  his  Chinese  advisers  this  time,  to  the 
extreme  desirability  of  effecting  that  important 
"swap." 

The  trade  in  cotton  goods  is  the  one  which 
most  interests  the  Englishman  at  home,  and  the 
Board  of  Trade  has  at  last  shown  its  good 
sense  in  establishing  an  Advisory  Committee, 
with  a  special  commissioner  properly  trained 
in  the  Chinese  language  and  the  cotton  business 
alike,  to  deal  with  the  textile  question  by  study- 
ing it  "on  the  tramp  "  in  China.  In  1880 
the  trade  in  cottongoods  amounted  to  23,400,000 
taels,  in  1899  to  103,500,000  taels,  and  in  1913 
to  182,500,000  taels  (being  38,000,000  taels 
over  1912).  As  to  the  yarn  trade,  the  displace- 
ment noticed  in  the  earlier  editions  of  this  work 
has  now  become  accentuated  to  such  a  degree 
that  Japan  and  India  practically  divide  the 
whole  foreign  import  in  equal  shares ;  both 
these,  however,  are  now  threatened  in  turn  by 
the  activities  of  Chinese  mills,  where  docile 
labour  is  obtainable  at  rates  defying  competi- 
tion anywhere  abroad.  There  is  an  immense 
import  of  native  raw  cotton,  native  yarn,  and 
native  coarse  cloth  into  Sz  Ch'wan,  and  much 
cotton  also  comes  into  Yiin  Nan  from  the  Shan 
states  and  Burma  ;  of  course  in  1880  nothing 
was  known  of  all  this  last,  because  Upper  Burma 
was  not  yet  under  our  control. 

Opium,  so  prominent  a  feature  in  foreign 
trade  when  "  China  "  was  first  published,  has 
now  happily  ceased  to  interest  us  except  in  so 
far  that  arrangements  are   still  incomplete  for 


146  MODERN  TRADE         .     [chap,  vii 

working  off-  stocks  in  hand  under  the  terms 
stipulated  with  the  late  Manchu  Government. 
President  Li,  as  did  President  Ylian,  shows  great 
determination  in  the  matter. 

In  1880  over  two-thirds  of  Chinese  exports 
(value  81,600,000  taels)  were  represented  by 
2,100,000  cwt.  of  tea,  valued  at  35,700,000  taels'; 
and  114,700  cwt.  of  silk,  valued  at  29,800,000 
taels.  It  is  as  sad  to  find  that  in  1899  and  1913 
the  exports  of  tea  only  amounted  to  1,631,000 
and  1,500,000  cwt.,  valued  at  about  30,000,000 
and  34,000,000  taels,  as  it  is  agreeable  to  notice 
the  totals  281,000  and  350,000  cwt.  of  silk, 
valued  at  90,000,000  and  105,000,000  taels. 
Thus  tea  is  better  and  dearer,  whilst  silk  is  more 
plentiful  and  cheaper,  no  doubt  owing  to  im- 
provements in  tea  assorting  and  to  filature 
developments  in  silk  factories.  India  and 
Ceylon  have  done  irreparable  damage  to  the 
tea  trade  of  China  with  Great  Britain,  who  now 
ranks  positively  after  Russia,  instead  of  being 
six  or  eight  times  ahead  of  her.  At  present, 
however,  Russia  is  beginning  to  appreciate 
Indian  and  Ceylon  teas  in  ever-increasing  quan- 
tities. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  main  staples  of 
trade  remain  very  much  what  they  were  before 
what  may  be  called  the  Treaty-port  period. 
But  it  must  be  noted  that  an  enormous  business 
is  now  done  in  many  new  commodities  of  which 
scarcely  aily thing  was  heard  in  1880,  still  less 
in  the  pre-legation  times  anterior  to  the  Second 
War  of  1858  ;  for  instance,  a  gigantic  and  ever- 
increasing  importation  of  kerosene  oil  from 
America,  Russia,  and  Sumatra,  which  in  1897 
had  already  exceeded  100,000,000  gallons, 
whilst  in  1913  we  have  185,000,000,  including 
about  24,000,000  from  a  new  rival — Borneo. 
Then  there  is  cheap  flour  for  South  China  from 


A.D.  1900-1917]   "NOT  IN  THESE  TROWSERS"    117 

America.  These  two  imports  alone,  witli  a 
joint  value  of  over  3.5,000,000  taels,  have  created 
as  great  a  social  revolution  in  China  as  did  the 
advent  of  tea  and  the  introduction  of  gas  into 
England.  Whiles  may  be  seen  by  the  thousand 
in  distant  Bhamo  carrying  kerosene  oil  through 
the  passes  into  Yun  Nan  ;  peasants  may  be  met 
every  evening  in  Arcadian  Hainan  carrying 
home  a  neat  pound-bag  of  beautiful  white  flour, 
together  with  the  farthing's-worth  of  peri- 
winkles their  ancestors  have  always  brought 
home  in  the  evening  as  a  relish  for  the  rice. 
Since  1899  quite  a  new  import  trade  in  cigarettes 
has  gained  a  firm  footing,  encouraged,  no  doubt, 
by  the  ban  upon  opium  :  the  value  for  1913 
was  12,500,000  taels.  Foreign  clothing  is  in 
demand  on  account  of  the  slump  in  pigtails  and 
petticoats  for  men  :  happily  women  have  not 
imitated  the  restless  and  often  hideous  changes 
beloved  of  their  Western  sisters,  but  have  con- 
fined their  democratic  yearnings  to  the  tighten- 
ing of  the  once  baggy  sleeves  and  trousers ; 
if  a  mere  man  may  venture  an  opinion,  they 
looked  more  modest  in  the  good  old  "  bags." 
Aniline  dyes  and  artificial  indigo  have  had  a  fine 
time  of  late  years,  to  the  profit  of  Germany, 
who  in  1913  pocketed  a  trifle  of  10,000,000 
taels. 

The  importation  of  miscellaneous  articles  of 
luxury  has  of  late  years  increased  to  such  an 
extent  as  to  vie  in  aggregate  amount  with  the 
totals  of  "  regulation  "  staples.  Thus  all  China- 
men who  can  afford  it  now  like  to  have  tumblers 
and  bottles,  foreign  stockings,  soap,  lamps, 
cigars,  preserved  milk,  sweets,  and  umbrellas  ; 
not  to  mention  watches,  musical-boxes,  bicycles, 
motors,  and  toys.  The  women  are  fond  of 
American  and  European  scents,  good  mirrors, 
fine  white  sugar  for  powdering  the  face,  needles, 
12 


148  MODERN   TRADE  [chap,  vii 

and  finger-rings.  Then  there  is  a  curious  though 
weighty  import  which  is  also  an  export.  It 
actualh^  pays  better  to  export  enormous  quan- 
tities of  coarse  Chinese  sugar  to  the  "  foreign 
country  "  of  Hongkong,  and  re-import  it  thence, 
after  refinement,  as  "  foreign  sugar,"  paying  one 
export,  one  import,  and  one  half  or  coast  duty, 
plus  two  freights,  than  to  refine  it  in  China 
where  labour  is  cheapest,  or  to  import  real 
foreign  sugar.  No  more  eloquent  comment  on 
the  suicidal  and  imbecile  financial  policy  of  the 
provincial  authorities  could  be  made.  In  1913 
China  spent  35,000,000  taels  on  this  "  imported  " 
sugar. 

But  besides  new-fangled  imports,  properly  so 
called,  and  this  hermaphrodite  sugar,  many  new 
exports  have  either  shifted  bearings,  or  have 
started  into  prominence  since  the  year  1880. 
In  that  year,  after  deducting  the  values  of  tea 
and  silk,  the  total  exports  from  China  in  foreign 
bottoms  were  only  12,300,000  taels,  against 
75,000,000  in  1899  and  260,000,000  in  1913. 
Thus,  the  beancake  (manure)  which  used  to  go 
from  Chefoo  and  Newchwang  to  South  China 
for  sugar  cultivation  in  1880,  now  mostly  goes 
to  Japan,  and  no  longer  exclusively  to  Amoy, 
Swatow,  and  such  places.  The  beans  from  which 
the  beancake  was  made  (after  the  extraction  of 
oil)  were  almost  unknown  as  an  export  ten  years 
ago,  but  now  the  beans  and  the  cake  each  count 
for  about  half  of  a  total  of  50,000,000  taels, 
and  besides  about  4,000,000  taels'  worth  of  oil 
goes  to  Belgium  and  Japan.  The  Dutch,  Danes, 
Belgians,  and  Germans  import  great  quantities 
of  beans  (and  various  crushed  oils)  for  the  manu- 
facture of  margarine  and  other  foodstuffs.  The 
Brazilians  and  the  Italians  are  now  growing  Soya 
hispida  of  their  own  in  rivalry.  Tlie  export  of 
straw-braid  from  Chefoo  and  Tientsin  has  doubled, 


A.D.  1880-1917]     GERMAN    "  SLIMNESS  "  149 

though  in  1880,  when  it  first  began  to  attract 
serious    notice,    it    had    ah-eady    nearly    trebled 
itself  in  five  years  ;    it  was  never  heard  of  in 
the    five-port    days :    there   was   a   tremendous 
fall  in  1913  to  5,000,000  taels  from  10,000,000 
in  1911,  no  doubt  in  consequence  of  fraudulent 
and  careless  behaviour  on  the  part  of  producers 
and    dealers.     Feathers    of    all    kinds    may    be 
described  as  an  entirely  new  export,   which  is 
now  assuming  really  great  and  alarming  dimen- 
sions  owing   to   the    organised    hunt    for    birds 
other  than   domestic   fowl.     The   albumen   and 
egg  export  is  also  quite  new.     Both  these  for 
Belgium  and  Germany.     The  quantity  of  hides 
and  skins  exported  had  in   1898   trebled  itself 
during  six  years — in  1880  the  export  was  hardly 
worth  special  mention :  in  1913  the  total  value 
was  about  25,000,000  taels ;    here  the  Germans 
have  been  as  active  as  in  the  notorious  Calcutta 
hide    monopoly,    so   dangerous    to   India.     The 
trade  in  mats  and  matting,  hemp,  jute,  ramie, 
leather,  native  spirit,  wine,  and  oils  has  been  ad- 
vancing in  a  most  extraordinary  rapid  fashion ; 
in  matting,    however,    there  has  been   a   recent 
slump,  owing  to  some  hitch  in  American  arrange- 
ments.     Still,    as  we  get  to  understand  better 
some  more  of  the  unfamiliar,  ingenious  uses  to 
which  the  long-experienced   Chinese   put   their 
numerous  oils,  barks,  and  fibres,  we  shall   un- 
doubtedly before  long  create   similar  large   ex- 
ports   in    other    directions.      There    are    many 
openings  in  China  for  the  mercantile  man  with 
ideas,   and  whatever  we  may  think  of  Kultur, 
there  is  no  denying  that  the  Germans  are  the 
most  fertile   in  this   thinking-out    department. 
Caveant  consules,  therefore. 

In  the  above  remarks  no  account  has  been 
taken  of  coast  trade  (730,000,000  taels),  which, 
added  to  the  foreign  trade,  amounted  in  1899  to 


150  MODERN  TRADE  [chap,  vii 

1,210,500,000  taels,  and  in  1913  to  1,353,500,000 
taels,  of  which  the  ships  of  Great  Britain  account 
for  013,000,000  taels  in  1899  and  rather  less  in 
1913  ;  that  is  to  say,  the  coast  trade  has  not 
increased  in  proportion  to  the  foreign  trade,  and 
the  Chinese  and  Japanese  steamers  have  taken 
much  more  of  the  coast  trade  than  formerly. 

As  to  foreign  shipping,  in  1880  there  were 
22,970  entrances  and  clearances  of  15,874,352 
tons,  60  per  cent,  being  British  ;  in  1899  the 
figm-es  were  56,957  entrances  and  clearances  of 
38,863,902  tons,  of  which,  again,  60  per  cent, 
were  British— at  least  so  far  as  tonnage  goes  ; 
in  1913  the  figures  were  190,738  and  93,334,830, 
Britain's  share  being  32,186  vessels  of  38,120,300 
tons  ;  but  in  1899  25,350  British  ships,  averag- 
ing over  900  tons  each,  carried  23,338,230  tons, 
whilst  it  took  22,548  Chinese  ships,  averaging 
over  400  tons  each,  to  carry  8,944,819  tons ; 
in  1913  it  took  121,768  Chinese  ships  to  carry 
19,903,944  tons.  Thus  the  British  ships  average 
about  1,200  tons  to  the  Chinese  average  of  150 
tons ;  the  explanation  is  that  steam-launches 
and  the  comparatively  recent  inland  navigation 
rules  have  revolutionised  local  shipping,  four- 
fifths  of  the  registered  "  inland  "  vessels  being 
Chinese.  Japanese  shipping  has  advanced  with 
giant  strides,  totalling  22,716  ships  of  23,422,487 
tons,  being  more  than  quintuple  the  figures  for 
1899  ;  and  it  will  be  noticed  that  the  average 
is  over  100  tons  per  ship.  Other  countries  are 
still  so  far  behind  that  I  need  not  mention  them  ; 
the  only  one  to  make  any  show  at  all  was  Ger- 
many, and  even  she  had  in  1913  fallen  seriously 
off  since  1903  :  of  course,  now,  she  has  dis- 
appeared altogether  as  the  baseless  fabric  of  a 
dream. 

The    comparative    number    of    foreign    firms 
doing    business    in    China    (including    now,    of 


A.u.  1880-iyi7j       i  OREIGNERS  IN  CHINA  151 

course,  Manchuria)  is  thus  given  for  the  three 
years  1880,  1899,  and  1913  :— 


Nationality, 


British 

German 

American 

French 

Russian 

Japanese   . 

Portuguese 

Dutch 

Danish 

Spanish     . 

Swedish,  etc. 


1880. 


21 


1899. 


47 


1913. 


236 

401 

!    690 

65 

115 

1    296 

31 

70 

1    131 

16 

76 

'         106 

16 

19 

1,229 

195 

1,269 

10 

46 

138 


Foreign  Firms  in  China 


385 


933 


3,805 


The  Germans  and  Americans,  it  will  be  ob- 
served, have  increased,  at  first  nearly,  and  later 
more    than    proportionately    with    the    British. 
The  Russians  made  no  attempt  to  go  beyond 
the  bounds   of  their   old   tea  trade,   and  their 
firms  were  all  at  Hankow,  Foochow,  and  Tien- 
tsin, until  the  Cassini  Convention  presented  them 
with  Manchuria.     The  French  increase  in  num- 
bers does  not  bulk  largely  in  reference  to  the 
volume  of  trade  done ;  but  they  are  especially 
active  in  silk  filatures.     The  Japanese  made  a 
big  jump  after  their  v/ar  of  1894-5,  and  a  still 
more  tremendous  jump   when   in   1904-5    they 
took  half  Russia's  interest  in  Manchuria.     The 
Portuguese  pricked  up  their  ears  when  Senhor 
Branco  "  made  the  fur  fly  "  in  1904  ;    and  the 
etcetera   now   includes   39    Italians,    24    Austro- 
Hungarians,  and  13  Belgians  who  had  not  found 
grace  previous  to  "  Boxer  "  eye-opening  ;    also 
7  Norwegians,  who  only  separated  from  Sweden 
in  1905.     In  1880  the  total  number  of  foreigners 
in  China,  including  missionaries  and  other  non- 
traders,  was  just  over  4,000  ;  in  1899  it  had  gone 


152  MODERN  TRADE  [chap,  vii 

up  to  about  17,000,  and  in  1913  (including 
Manchuria)  to  164,000.  Of  course  all  this  has 
nothing  to  do  with  Hongkong,  which  is  no  longer 
a  political  part  of  "  China." 

Let  us  now  take  the  ports  one  by  one,  glance 
comparatively  at  the  years  1880,  1899,  and 
1913,  and  see  what  prospects  they  give  for  the 
enterprising  trader  of  the  future. 

(1)  Pakhoi  is  the  Ultima  Thule  of  coast  ports, 
as  viewed  from  a  Chinese  standpoint.  In  1880 
the  boycotting  of  steamers  by  native  junk  owners 
and  monopolists  had  only  just  recently  been 
broken  up  ;  opium  was  the  chief  import ;  cassia 
and  aniseed  the  leading  exports.  In  1899  Indian 
cotton  yarn  alone  represented  three-sevenths  in 
value  of  all  imports  ;  opium  was  quite  insignifi- 
cant. Aniseed  stands  for  one  quarter  of  the 
exports  ;  cassia  is  not  even  mentioned.  Sugar, 
hides,  and  indigo  stand  for  over  half  the  remain- 
ing exports.  In  1913  the  total  trade  had 
dwindled  to  a  third  of  its  1899  value.  Indian 
yarn  stood  for  one-fifth  of  all  imports,  and 
kerosene  for  one-tenth ;  opium  was  extinct. 
Neither  aniseed  nor  cassia  is  separately  men- 
tioned ;  sugar  falls  to  insignificance ;  hides 
stand  firm,  and  liquid  indigo  defies  German 
dyes.  Pigs  and  fish  are  now  the  chief  stand-by 
of  moribund  Pakhoi  trade. 

(2)  Hoihow  (Kiungchow)  in  1880  sent  nothing 
abroad,  and  chiefly  imported  foreign  opium,  but 
in  1913  the  import  of  opium  was  only  one- 
twelfth  in  value  of  the  total  imports.  Cottons, 
principally  Indian  yarn,  were  in  1899  far  ahead 
of  opium,  and  kerosene  had  shot  up  to  nearly 
half  the  value  of  that  driig.  Cottons,  still  half 
Indian  yarn,  and  kerosene  now  stand  for  half 
the  value  of  the  remaining  total  imports  after 
the  deduction  of  opium,  and  kerosene  alone  is 
four- fifths  the  value  of  opium.     Pigs  and  sugar 


A.D.  1880-1916]    CANTON  AND  ROBERTSON     153 

have  always  been  and  still  are  the  chief  exports, 
amounting  in  1913  to  considerably  more  than 
half  the  total  value.  The  export  of  "  pine- 
apple "  hemp  and  its  grass-cloth  continues  to 
be  considerable ;  the  Kew  authorities  possess 
full  details  (from  myself)  concerning  this  im- 
portant fibre. 

(3)  Sam-shui  (including  the  subsidiary  ports 
of  Kongmun  and  Kumchuk)  was  only  opened  in 
1897  :  cotton  goods  stand  for  over  half  the 
total  imports  ;  sugar  and  tobacco  are  the  most 
promising  exports.  Andad  con  Dios!  for  little 
is  ever  reported  of  you  ;  in  fact  nothing,  this 
century,  by  any  consul. 

(4)  Lappa  (round  Macao)  and  (5)  Kowloong 
(round  Hongkong).  These  stations  were 
opened  in  order  to  check  salt  smuggling  and  to 
facilitate  the  working  of  the  Opium  Agreement 
of  1886.  Their  position  is  peculiar,  as  Maritime 
Customs  officers  are,  practically  speaking,  in 
charge  of  a  purely  Chinese  junk  trade,  which  does 
not  concern  foreigners  directly.  The  effects  of 
the  Kowloong  extension  of  1898,  apart  from  the 
railway  to  Canton,  concern  the  colony  of 
Hongkong,  which,  possessing  no  statistics,  is 
never  very  illuminating  on  the  subject  of  trade. 

(6)  Canton;  a  strong  German  shipping  and 
general  trade  centre  before  the  war.  In  1880 
the  imports  were  only  one-fifth  of  the  exports ; 
most  of  the  opium  was  (and  was  still  in  1899) 
imported  in  native  junks.  There  had  been 
singular  neglect  on  the  part  of  foreigners  for 
twenty-five  years  past  to  insist  on  transit-pass 
privileges  for  imports  into  Kwang  Si  and  be- 
yond. This  was  chiefly  owing  to  the  personal 
policy  of  my  former  respected  chief.  Sir  Brooke 
Robertson,  the  British  Consul,  v/ho  took  a  sym- 
pathetic view  of  China's  financial  straits.  The 
chief  exports  wxre  silk,  tea,  sugar,  tobacco,  and 


154  MODERN  TRADE  [chap,  vii 

iiuitting.  In  1899  the  foreign  imports  alone 
were  worth  more  than  half  the  exports,  of 
which  silk  (filature)  was  then  practically  the 
sole  important  one.  Matting  only  stood  for 
one-twentieth  part  of  the  value  of  silk,  although 
compared  with  1880  there  was  twice  as  much 
of  it  in  1899  ;  sugar  had  by  no  means  disap- 
peared, and  glass  bangles  were  worth  as  nmch 
as  tea  and  tobacco  put  together.  Owing, 
however,  to  matting,  tea,  and  other  produce 
for  Europe  at  that  time  all  going  to  Hongkong 
largely  "by  junk,  it  was  quite  fallacious  to  take 
the  Foreign  Customs  returns  for  Canton  as  a 
criterion  of  the  prosperity  in  export  business. 

Li  Hung-chang  took  a  very  important  decision 
in  this  province  before  leaving  for  Shanghai  in 
connection  with  the  "  Boxer  "  difficulties  of  the 
summer  of  1900.  He  abolished  all  likin  through- 
out Kwang  Tung  in  consideration  of  4,000,000 
dollars  a  year  to  be  paid  by  the  seventy-two 
leading  trades.  Were  this  new  plan  to  succeed 
permanently,  it  might  revolutionise  the  com- 
merce of  the  province  or  trading  "  hongs."  Be 
that  as  it  may.  Canton  trade  is  already  gal- 
vanised into  new  life,  and  1910  was  its  "record." 
Since  then  wars  and  revolutions  have  reduced 
it,  and  must  have  further  reduced  it  since  1913, 
when  its  total  reached  114,000,000  taels;  yet 
its  revenue  for  that  year  is  a  record.  Opium 
has  disappeared,  but  of  course  some  must  be 
smuggled.  The  exports  now  balance  the  im- 
ports (if  we  include  the  bullion  on  both  sides). 
The  Hoppo,  with  his  nefarious  native  customs, 
is  abolished.  The  chief  imports  are  cotton  goods, 
sugar,  and  kerosene.  The  chief  exports  remain 
as  before,  that  of  sugar  being  one-third  of  the  im- 
port, for  reasons  already  explained  (pp.  148,  155) ; 
and  matting  having  fallen  off  (p.  149). 

(7)  Wu-chou  (40,000  inhabitants),  the  gate  to 


A.D.  1880-191GJ     KWANG   SI   AND   SWATOW    155 

Kwang  Si,  had  no  existence  as  a  foreign  port 
in  1880.  After  two  and  a  half  years  of  hfe, 
by  the  end  of  1899  it  was  found  that  practically 
the  whole  trade  was  with  Hongkong.  More 
than  half  the  imports  were  cotton  goods — as 
they  still  are.  It  is  purely  a  transhipping  centre, 
and  the  surrounding  district  possesses  no  impor- 
tant products  of  its  own ;  motor-boats  carry  up 
country,  and  bring  back,  respectively,  the  imports 
from  and  exports  to  Hongkong  and  Canton  by 
large  steamers,  which  cannot  get  beyond  this 
point.  In  1907  the  "  port "  of  Nan-ning,  500  miles 
farther  up  the  river,  was  opened,  and  the  motor- 
boats  could  even  ascend  another  500  miles  to 
Peh-ngai,  on  the  Yiin  Nan  frontier.  After  the 
revolution  of  1912,  Nan-ning  was  made  the  capital 
of  the  province  in  place  of  Kwei-lin ;  but  in  1915 
the  Civil  Governor  went  back  to  the  old  capital, 
the  Military  Governor  remainingat  Nan-ning.  The 
whole  trade  of  Wu-ehou  and  Nan-ning  combined 
is  negligible  in  bulk  and  value,  and  in  any  case 
does  not  seriously  concern  foreigners  at  present. 

(8)  At  Swatow  in  1880  more  than  half  the 
value  of  imports  stood  for  opium,  and  sugar 
was  the  chief  export.  In  1889  opium  repre- 
sented only  one-tenth,  and  cotton  goods  one- 
sixth  ;  these  two  together  just  equal  the  value 
of  the  opium  alone  in  1880,  and  beancake  (in- 
cluding beans)  stood  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  the 
imports.  Sugar  remained  the  chief  export ; 
the  value  of  the  sugar  exported  about  counter- 
balancing that  of  imported  opium  and  cotton 
goods  combined.  In  1918  opium  disappears,  and 
fine  Java  sugars  are  imported  in  increasing  quaji- 
tities  to  the  detriment  of  local  exports,  the 
beancake  going  to  fertilise  better-paying  crops. 

Formosa  has  now  been  lost  to  Cliina  for  over 
twenty  years,  and  there  is  no  more  justification 
for  continuing   to   discuss   its   condition   under 


156  MODERN  TRADE  [chap,  vii 

Japan  than  there  would  be  for  discussing  the 
trade  of  Hongkong  and  Macao  under  Great 
Britain  and  Portugal. 

(9)  Amoy  still  carries  on  the  old  native 
"  Zaitun  "  trade  with  the  "  Straits,"  the  Indo- 
Chinese  peninsula,  Formosa  (now  Japanese), 
the  Dutch  archipelago,  and  the  Spanish  (now 
American)  Islands,  to  which  places  large  num- 
bers of  emigrants  proceed  annually,  equal  num- 
bers returning  with  fortunes  made.  Opium  and 
cottons  in  exchange  for  tea  and  sugar  were 
the  chief  items  in  the  foreign  trade  of  1880. 
Opium  and  cottons  in  1899  still  represent  half 
the  value  of  the  foreign  imports,  but  in  1913 
opium  is  extinct  and  moreover  the  local  culti- 
vation of  the  poppy  is  eradicated.  Amoy  has 
long  been  and  still  is  a  declining  port;  besides,  its 
trade  has  little  interest  for  any  foreigners  except 
(as  with  Swatow)  those  trading  from  Hongkong 
and  the  Straits  of  Java.  In  no  part  of  China 
was  government  more  rotten  than  in  the  Fuh 
Kien  province,  to  which  Swatow  really  belongs 
ethnologically ;  possibly  the  reason  is,  in  part, 
because  all  dialects  spoken  there  are  totally 
unintelligible  to  the  northern  officials ;  since  the 
revolution  of  1911,  Fuh  Kien  has  been  almost  a 
forgotten  region. 

(10)  The  North  Fuh  Kien  port  of  San-tu  Ao 
(Samsah  Inlet)  was  voluntarily  opened  in  May, 
1899,  entirely  as  a  political  move.  I  visited  it 
and  the  alum  mountain  to  the  north  of  it  in 
1884,  and  travelled  throughout  the  Hinterland. 
I  am,  therefore,  in  a  position  to  suggest  that 
tea  and  alum  are  likely  to  be  the  chief  exports  ; 
the  tea  at  present  all  goes  via  Foochow.  No 
foreign  business  has,  however,  yet  been  reported ; 
no  foreigner  is  there  or  goes  there  ;  it  is  simply 
a  question  of  naval  harbour  interest. 

(11)  Foochow  lies  midway  between  the  last 


A.D.  1154-1916]     CHEH    KIANG    PORTS  157 

two  places.  In  1880  it  still  possessed  the 
largest  tea  export,  and  the  memory  of  glorious 
old  clipper  days  was  yet  green  there.  Tea  in 
1913  still  stands  for  four-fifths  of  the  total 
exports,  as  it  did  in  1899,  but  the  quantity  is 
only  half  of  that  shipped  in  1880.  The  other 
noticeable  exports  are  poles,  bamboo-made 
paper,  oranges,  and  edible  bamboo  shoots.  In 
1880  the  imports  were  only  one-quarter  of  the 
exports,  in  value,  but  now,  as  in  1899,  more 
than  equal  the  latter.  It  is  at  this  port  that, 
as  regards  shipping,  both  the  Chinese  and  the 
Japanese  flags  have  made  the  greatest  inroads 
upon  British  tonnage  since  1899.  Opium  in 
1899  was  still,  as  it  was  in  1880,  one  of  the  chief 
imports,  but  on  a  much  reduced  scale  ;  the  same 
may  be  said  of  1913,  but  the  suppression  of  the 
trade  made  it  clear  that  by  1914  all  but  the 
illicit  imports  will  have  vanished. 

(12)  Wenchow  has  never  been  much  of  a  port 
in  our  days,  though  it  was  once  so  in  the  olden 
times,  and  a  good  tea  trade  was  expected  from 
it  when  we  went  there  in  1878.  It  is  so  insigni- 
ficant now  that  the  British  consuls  have  ceased 
even  to  report  upon  it.  There  is  a  considerable 
and  very  ancient  export  of  bitter  oranges,  des- 
tined entirely  for  the  Mongol  market  by  way  of 
Tientsin  ;  these  oranges  are  mentioned  at  the 
"  Manzi  "  or  Sung  dynasty's  court  of  Hangchow 
in  the  year  1154. 

(13)  Ningpo  had  degenerated  from  1880  to 
1899  into  a  mere  sleepy  branch  of  Shanghai, 
to  which  place  it  shipped  its  tea,  mats,  fans, 
and  rush  or  straw  hats  by  the  daily  British  or 
Chinese  steamer,  taking  chiefly  opium,  metals, 
and  cotton  goods  in  return.  This  is  still  the  case 
so  far  as  the  steamers  are  concerned,  except  that 
the  Chinese  tonnage  is  now  far  ahead  of  the 
British.     The  old  raw  cotton  export  continues, 


158  MODERN   TRADE  [chap,  vii 

but  with  great  fluctuations.  The  Shanghai  rail- 
way to  Hangchow,  and  thence  to  Ningpo,  may 
infuse  new  Hfe  into  the  port,  but  pohtical  condi- 
tions and  interminable  railway  squabbles  have 
seriously  compromised  its  success. 

(14)  Hangchow  was  only  opened  in  1896,  and 
has  already  far  exceeded  the  expectations  formed 
of  it,  though  it  is  a  mere  canal  appendage  of 
Shanghai,  as  Ningpo  is  a  sea  appendage.  In 
1899  its  gross  trade  had  already  nearly  reached 
12,000,000  taels  ;  in  1913  17,300,000  taels.  The 
chief  imports  were  opium,  tobacco,  kerosene, 
beans,  and  beancake — but  opium  has  been  dis- 
placed by  cigarettes  ;  the  exports  consist  prin- 
cipally of  tea  and  silk.  The  Shanghai  railw^ay  has 
disturbed  and  will  further  disturb  the  direction 
of  trade  communications,  but  in  1913  the  railway 
directors  had  to  announce  a  serious  deficit,  and 
both  rolling  stock  and  permanent  way  need 
renewal. 

I  have  now  w^orked  all  the  way  up  to  Shanghai 
from  the  south  ;  but,  before  touching  upon  that 
great  centre,  I  will  bring  down  the  river  trade  and 
the  northern  trade  each  to  the  same  focus,  and 
then  collect  our  consideration  of  the  whole  three 
groups  into  one  purview,  together  with  that  of 
the  great  depot  for  them  all. 

(15)  Chungking  was  opened  in  1891,  but  I 
resided  there  for  a  twelvemonth  ten  years  earlier 
than  that.  The  foreign-managed  trade  had 
already  in  1899  reached  26,000,000  taels,  imports 
and  exports  being  equally  divided ;  in  1913, 
despite  revolutions,  rebellions,  and  local  squab- 
bles, which  greatly  hampered  trade,  the  total 
exceeded  30,000,000  taels,  or  only  8  per  cent, 
below  the  "  record  "  of  1909  :  of  course  this  total 
does  not  cover  the  vast  commerce  of  the  feeding 
rivers,  nor  that  portion  of  the  Yang-tsze  trade 
which  ignores  the  Foreign  Customs.     Here  the 


A.D.  1880-1915]      FAR    UP-RIVER    PORTS  150 

tables    are    tui-ned,    and    the    conditions    new ; 
there  has  never  been  an  import  of  Indian  opium, 
but  more  tlian  a  tliird  of  the  total  exports  used 
to  consist  of  the  native  drug — now  oj^ium  is  not 
even  mentioned.     White  wax  and  silk  between 
them   make  up   another  third,   and   efforts   are 
being  made  so  to  improve  the  silk  trade  as  to 
make  it  fill  the  place  vacated  by  opium.     There 
is  a  very  large  export  of  musk  from  Tibet,  which 
takes  in  exchange  10,000  tons  of  coarse  tea,  by 
way   of  Ya-chou.      All   the   trade,   import   and 
export,  used  to  be  done  in  chartered  native  junks, 
but  during  the  past  fcAv  years   small  steamers 
and  gunboats  have  found  a  way  over  the  rapids 
and  through  the  gorges,  and  thus  may  be  said 
to  have  revolutionised  transport,  at  least  for  six 
months  in  the  year.  The  imports  have  all  to  pass 
the  gauntlet   of  either   Shanghai,   Hankow,    or 
Ichang,^ — sometimes  of  all  three.    The  chief  part 
consists  of  cotton  goods,  or  raw  cotton  and  cotton 
yarn  (native  as  well  as  foreign)  to  be  locally 
spun  or  woven  into  yarn  and  cloth.     In  June 
1915    the    important    city  of  Wan  Men  below 
Chungking  was   opened  as   a  branch   (Foreign 
Customs)    of   the    Chungking    office.       Though 
Chungking  exports  raw  silk,  it  imports  silk  piece- 
goods,  skilled  local  handiwork  not  yet  being  quite 
up  to  the  mark,  and  silk  being  much  worn  by  all 
classes.     Chungking,  representing  also  Tibet,  is 
the  drug-exporting  place  par  excellence  of  China  ; 
but  it  is  impossible  in  this  rapid  sketch  even  to 
name  the  many  new  features  of  trade  that  have 
recently  given  this  vast  mart  exceptional  import- 
ance ;  what  is  really  wanted  is  a  body  of  Chinese- 
speaking  British  agents,  each  agent  representing 
firms  in  one  particular  line  ;    more  especially  in 
machinery,  engineering,  and  electricity,  in  which 
the  Germans  have  been  showing  great  activity. 
(16)  Ich'ang,  at  the  mouth  of  the  gorges,  made 


160  MODERN  TRADE  [chap,  vii 

a  "  port "  in  1877,  was  considered  a  failure 
already  in  1880,  but  the  opening  of  Chungking, 
with  its  native  opium  trade,  in  1891  somewhat 
changed  the  face  of  things,  and  the  total  amount 
of  the  trade  for  1899  was  about  fourteen  times 
as  great  as  that  for  1880  ;  but  only  a  small  part 
of  it  is  local,  the  bulk  is  all  mere  transhipment  to 
or  from  Chungking.  The  neighbourhood  is  too 
mountainous  and  badly  supplied  with  roads  for 
local  trade  to  develop  rapidly  ;  the  total  of  all 
kinds  for  1913  was  only  about  5,000,000  taels 
net.  As  to  shipping,  the  Chinese,  and  still  more 
the  Japanese  are  rapidly  gaining  ground  upon  the 
British.  The  Hankow-Ich'ang-Sz  Ch'wan  railway 
has  not  got  much  beyond  the  talking  stage. 

(17)  Shashi  is,  so  to  speak,  the  port  of  King- 
chou,  which  was  in  very  ancient  times  an  an- 
cient royal  capital,  and  has  always  been  a  great 
political  centre  in  the  past :  it  was  still  up  to 
1911  the  residence  of  a  Tartar  garrison.  Its 
port  was  opened  in  1896,  and  is  so  far  a  failure 
that  the  British  consulate  has  been  withdrawn 
since  1899.  There  are  great  hopes  of  develop- 
ment when  the  Shashi- Hi ngi  railway  to  Hu  Nan, 
etc.,  is  started.  The  total  trade  at  present  is 
less  even  than  that  of  Ich'ang,  the  Chinese  mer- 
chants preferring  junks  to  steamers,  liki7i  to 
Foreign  Customs,  and  the  Back  River  to  the 
Yang-tsze.  But  there  is  an  enormous  native 
cotton  trade  Avith  Sz  Ch'wan.  I  ought  to  say 
here,  once  for  all,  in  connection  with  inter-port 
trade  generally,  that  a  total  for  all  China  of  nearly 
1,000,000,000  taels  would  have  to  be  added  to 
each  500,000,000  taels  of  foreign  trade,  if  the 
coast  trade  of  each  port  (only  that  managed  by 
the  Foreign  Customs)  were  in  each  case  included  : 
it  is  difficult  to  guess  what  the  /*Hn-managed 
trade  would  amount  to  beyond  that. 

(18)  Yochou,  the  key  to  Hu  Nan,  was  opened 


A.D.  1900-1914]     CENTRAL    CHINA'S    PORT     161 

in  November,  1899,  but  it  did  not  properly 
"  take  down  its  shutters "  for  business  until 
1900.  It  had  a  fitful  career  of  ups  and  downs 
until,  in  1904,  the  opening  of  the  Hu  Nan  capital, 
Ch'ang-sha,  took  the  wind  out  of  its  flapping  sails 
entirely.  Ch'ang-sha,  a  great  mining  centre, 
especially  in  antimony,  has  been  a  great  success 
from  the  beginning,  and  a  vast  lake  trade  has 
grown  up  with  the  great  marts  of  Hu  Nan,  in 
which  the  Japanese  take  a  prominent  part ;  in 
fact,  their  shipping  and  that  of  the  Chinese 
quite  equal  that  of  Great  Britain.  In  spite  of 
general  and  local  political  scares,  the  trade  has 
risen  steadily  without  a  single  break  from 
6,000,000  taels  in  1905  to  24,000,000  in  1913  : 
opium  and  the  poppy  cultivation  are  effectually 
scotched.  "  Chinese  shipping  "  of  course  means 
steam  craft  under  the  Foreign  Customs,  quite 
apart  from  junk  trade. 

(19)  The  great  entrepot  of  Hankow  occupies 
one  of  the  finest  trade  positions  in  the  world. 
It  is  the  only  place  in  China  proper,  as  distinct 
from  Manchuria,  where  the  Russians  are  in  really 
strong  force  :  the  largest  ocean  steamers  from 
Odessa  and  London  can  anchor  opposite  the 
Consulate  doors.  After  taking  source  near  the 
same  spot,  and  flying  off  from  each  other  thou- 
sands of  miles,  the  one  towards  the  desert  and  the 
other  towards  the  south,  the  Yang-tsze  and  the 
Yellow  River  approach  once  more  to  within  a 
distance  of  300  miles  :  one  of  the  Hankow  rivers, 
the  Han,  taps  the  whole  of  the  intervening  space, 
and  after  a  partly  navigable  course  of  1,250  miles 
joins  the  Yang-tsze  at  Hankow,  which  is  also 
exactly  half-way  between  gates  or  keys  of  the 
two  lake  systems  of  Hu  Nan  and  Kiang  Si. 
Situated  as  it  is  in  the  centre  of  China,  with  cheap 
water  communications  in  every  possible  direc- 
tion,  it  naturally  trades  in  almost  everything, 


162  MODERN   TRADE  [chap,  vii 

and  the  Germans  have  been  as  enterprising, 
since  the  "  Boxer  "  wars,  as  the  British  have 
been  supine,  in  estabhshing  vigorous  new  export 
trades  h^nce. 

The  trade  of  Hankow  must  be  studied  in  con- 
nection with  that  of  the  ports  above  and  below 
it,  otherwise  the  grand  total  of  67,000,000  taels 
for  1899  and  154,000,000  for  1913  (or  85,000,000 
taels  and  175,000,000  if  viewed  from  another 
standpoint)  would  be  misleading  ;  even  the  tea, 
which  is  of  course  a  bond  fide  original  cargo 
shipped  direct  for  Europe,  includes  Kewkiang 
tea.  It  is  found  more  paying  to  bring  the  leaf  up 
river  this  way  in  native  boats  than  to  ship  it  on 
board  chance  steamers  calling  at  Kewkiang, 
simply  to  fill  up  there  if  they  have  space.  The 
export  of  tea  was  in  1899  fifty  percent,  greater 
than  that  of  Foochow  ;  in  1913  the  export  was 
three  times  the  value,  and  the  import  (for  blend- 
ing purposes)  into  Hankow  of  Ceylon,  Assam, 
and  Java  dust  was  more  than  half  the  Foochow 
export,  the  Hankow  export  of  teas  thus  blended 
alone  far  exceeding  the  total  export  from 
Foochow.  The  import  of  kerosene  is  enormous, 
and  two  5,000-ton  tanks  were  destroyed  during 
the  revolution  of  1911.  The  recklessness  in  the 
use  of  oil-lamps  had  already  in  previous  years 
been  the  cause  of  some  very  destructive  fires  in 
Hankow,  which  finally  received  its  coup  de  grace 
when  imperialist  conflagrations,  during  the  1911 
revolt,  practically  annihilated  the  whole  city,  the 
rebuilding  of  which  in  improved  style  becomes 
more  difficult  the  longer  time  is  wasted.  Yet, 
what  with  railways,  cloth  and  paper  mills,  en- 
gineering and  cement  works,  needle  and  nail 
factory,  mints,  waterworks,  electric  installations, 
arsenals,  mining,  etc.,  the  whole  place  buzzes 
with  "  unkempt  "  activity,  and  there  is  no  space 
to  say  more  here. 


A.D.  1880-1913]     LAKE  AND   RIVER   PORTS     163 

(20)  Kewkiang  was  already  a  decadent  port, 
and  had  been  reduced  to  a  British  vice-consulate 
long  before  1880,  there  being  little  in  the  way  of 
either  import  or  export,  beyond  sugar,  shipping 
agencies,  and  tea,  to  interest  foreigners.  On  the 
whole,  though  there  was  a  great  fall  in  1913,  tea 
is  not  now  dechning,  and  the  Russians  in  that  year 
did  well  in  green  brick  tea,  sent  via  Manchuria 
to  Mongolia.  There  is  a  large  native  trade  in 
porcelain  from  the  Kiang  Si  potteries,  but  not 
much  of  it  is  exported  to  foreign  countries ; 
no  wonder,  for  eighteen  likin  "  squeezes  "  must 
be  paid  before  it  can  reach  Shanghai ;  the  Re- 
publican Government  is  taking  steps  to  reor- 
ganise and  improve  the  industry.  VVith  cheap 
and  comfortable  daily,  almost  hourly,  steamers 
up  and  down  the  river,  native  merchants 
naturally  prefer  to  go  to  Shanghai  or  Hankow 
to  make  large  purchases  and  contracts.  The 
great  summer  resort  of  Kuling  has  sprung  into 
existence  since  the  first  editions  of  this  book 
appeared  :  the  "  estate  "  has  now  attained  the 
dimensions  of  a  Homburg  or  a  Pdstyen,  and  is 
largely  patronised  by  missionaries  :  it  is  five 
hours  to  the  cool  mountain  by  "  chair  "  from 
sweltering  Kewkiang.  There  was  in  1899  some 
prospect  of  a  valuable  trade  in  the  grass-cloth 
plant  (Boehmeria  nivea),  which  had  just  then  at- 
tracted attention  both  in  England  and  Germany  : 
in  1913  the  export  had  reached  116,000  cwts. 
Since  the  Inland  Water  Navigation  rules  were 
promulgated  in  1898,  an  active  steam-launch 
traffic  for  passengers  has  sprung  up  on  the 
Poyang  Lake  :  the  commercial  activity  on  this 
lake  now  bids  fair  to  rival  that  of  its  rival  Tung- 
t'ing;  but,  so  far,  the  Kiang  Si  capital  Nan-ch'ang 
has  not  been  "  opened."  Even  the  railway  to 
connect  it  with  Kewkiang  progresses  slowly— 
the  Japanese  have  a  strong  interest  in  it,  and 
18 


164  MODERN  TRADE  [chap,  vii 

also  in  the  lake  shipping.  There  is  "  talk  "  of  a 
new  railway,  direct,  to  join  the  two  lake  capitals 
Ch'ang-sha  and  Nan-ch'ang. 

(21)  Wuhu,  like  all  the  ports  opened  under 
the  Chefoo  Convention,  was  in  1880  considered 
to  be  a  comparative  failure,  and  for  a  long  time 
no  foreigners  went  there.  The  fact  is,  China- 
men are  conservative,  and  do  not  want  more 
points  of  contact  than  they  are  accustomed  to 
use,  or  are  gradually  brought  up  to  appreciate. 
But,  after  all,  1899  proved  its  best  year,  more 
than  doubling  the  average  total  annual  trade  for 
the  ten  previous  years,  and  passing  20,000,000 
taels  :  after  gradually  reaching  nearly  30,000,000 
in  1912,  it  resumed  in  1913  the  1899  figure,  the 
revolt  of  that  summer  having  disorganised  com- 
merce, whilst  the  rebellious  Military  Governor 
had  to  flee.  The  gigantic  export  of  rice  (4,000,000 
cwt.),  largely  to  Canton  and  Swatow,  was  the 
chief  cause  for  the  unlooked-for  increase  of  1899  ; 
in  1913  the  export  was  only  3,000,000  cwt.,  but 
this  is  always  an  uncertain  staple,  for  rice  can 
scarcely  ever  be  sent  abroad,  and  very  special  likin 
arrangements  have  to  be  made  whenever  shortage 
in  other  provinces  renders  it  urgently  necessary 
to  send  cheap  rice  to  other  parts  of  China.  Rice, 
moreover,  is  quite  an  uncertain  commodity  in 
itself,  and  depends  entirely  upon  the  weather.^ 

(22)  Nanking,  though  nominally  available 
under  the  earlier  treaties,  was  not  really  made  an 
open  port  until  May,  1899,  and  by  1913  it  had 
worked  its  Vv^ay  up  to  14,000,000  taels.  In  spite 
of  the  sacking  and  destruction  of  the  city  during 
the  1913  troubles,  that  was  a  "  record  "  year^ — 
so  kindly  does  the  Chinese  eel  take  to  skinning. 
Nanking  now  has  its  University,  and  is  a  railway 
centre  of  the  first  magnitude  ;  four  British  firms 
do  a  large  business  there  already,  and  its  prospects 
are  unbounded. 

1  cf.  p.  144. 


A.D.1600-1916]  NEWCHWANG'S  VICISSITUDES   165 

(23)  Chinkiang  was  in  so  poor  a  way  in  1880 
that  it  had  only  three  years  previously  earned 
its  right  to  be  restored  to  its  position  as  an 
independent  consulate ;  for  some  years  the 
officer-in-charge  had  to  submit  matters  involving 
important  changes  to  the  Consul  at  Shanghai. 
It  is  sickening,  now  that  opium  is  practically  a 
hideous  dream  of  the  past,  to  look  back  to  the 
statistics  of  1899,  and  see  what  a  prominent  part 
the  drug  then  took  in  the  trade  of  Chinkiang — 
and  of  most  other  ports.  The  Czar's  abolition 
of  drink  in  1914  was  not  a  more  beneficial  act  of 
autocracy  than  the  Emperor's  (or  rather  the  old 
Dowager's)  smashing  edict  of  September  1906  ; 
and  fortunately  the  Republic  sticks  to  its  guns 
now  that  her  Majesty's  ten-year  period  of  grace 
is  over.  In  spite  of  the  1913  rebellion  and  the 
loss  of  opium  revenue,  Chinkiang  has  a  hopeful 
future,  especially  when  the  new  port  of  P'u-k'ou 
opposite  Nanking  springs  into  organised  exist- 
ence. As  to  shipping,  Great  Britain  still  has 
50  per  cent,  of  it.  But  at  present  it  is  rather 
startling  to  see  it  rank  in  trade  volume  below 
Chefoo,  which  only  serves  the  trade  require- 
ments of  one  tiny  corner  of  Shan  Tung. 

Having  now  exhausted,  I  am  afraid  in  a  very 
sketchy  way,  the  riverine  line  of  ports,  I  pass  to 
the  extreme  north. 

(24)  Newchwang  is  the  most  northerly  port 
of  all.  Although  it  is  said  to  be  in  "  Manchuria," 
the  province  of  Sheng  King  had  really  no 
civilised  Manchu  population  to  speak  of  before 
A.D.  1600  ;  the  inhabitants  are  a  mixed  Chinese- 
Tungusic  race,  who  have  been  as  often  governed 
by  Corea  and  by  Tunguses  of  various  kinds  as 
by  Chinese.  In  1880  all  the  foreign  imports 
from  abroad  came  via  Shanghai  or  direct  from 
Hongkong.  Russia  and  Japan  had  not  yet  put 
in  an  appearance,  nor  had  a  pound  of  yarn  been 


166  MODERN  TRADE  [chap,  vil 

imported.  In  1899  the  trade  was  double  that 
of  1898,  and  then  having  gradually  attained  its 
maximum  of  74,250,000  taels  in  the  year  of  the 
revolution,  1911,  it  had  fallen  off  25  per  cent, 
of  that  figure  in  1913  and  resumed  the  lower 
total  of  1908.  Having  undergone  Russian  and 
Japanese  occupations,  the  evil  effects  of  Mon- 
golian troubles,  plague,  the  reflex  action  of  the 
Yang-tsze  revolts,  and  other  political  disloca- 
tions ;  having,  moreover,  suffered  from  inflated 
paper  money  and  general  currency  chaos,  in- 
justice in  settling  native  mercantile  claims, 
drought,  and  unsatisfactory  Liao  River  condi- 
tions, etc.,  etc.,  the  foreign  merchant  at  New- 
chwang  has  indeed  been  a  sorely  tried  person 
for  a  whole  decade.  At  present  the  Japanese 
shipping  still  equals  and  even  exceeds  the  British, 
which  in  turn  is  more  than  that  of  all  other 
nations  put  together.  Japan,  moreover,  still 
takes  half  the  total  exports.  Russia  had  thirteen 
steamers  in  1899,  but  only  three  in  1913.  The 
sole  export  of  first-class  importance  in  1880  was 
beancake  (and  beans) ;  now  the  Soya  hispida 
export  is  one  of  the  great  features  of  Chinese 
trade.  The  port  has  to  suffer  severe  competition 
from  Dairen  or  Dalny,  but  latterly  the  Japanese 
have  begun  to  interest  themselves  in  the  New- 
chwang  trade  too.  The  formerly  flourishing 
American  trade  in  cotton  goods  has  received 
a  blow,  owing  to  the  successive,  and  now  joint 
policies  of  Russia  and  Japan.  America  looks 
askance  at  the  latest  position,  and  naturally 
tries  to  "  get  in  "  once  more. 

Port  Arthur  in  1899  was  a  great  trading  place 
for  many  nationalities,  but  of  course  in  purely 
Russian  interests.  The  Japanese,  who  now  use 
it  chiefly  as  a  naval  port,  took  it  from  China  in 
1894,  and  again  from  Russia  in  1904  ;  in  1910 
the  western  harbour  was  thrown  open,  but  it  is 


A.D.  1880-1913]     GULF  OF  CHIH  LI  PORTS         167 

not  a  "  port  "  under  the  Foreign  Customs — in 
fact  it  is  a  failure  in  trade. 

(25)  Ta-lien  Wan  (Japanese  Dairen),  or  Dalny 
as  the  Russians  called  it  in  1898,  is  an  open  port 
in  territory  "  leased  "  first  to  Russia  and  then  to 
Japan.  Before  the  Japanese  took  it  the  Russians 
had  carried  out  stupendous  public  works  there 
with  a  view  to  a  great  future  trade,  especially  in 
coal  and  beans.  Express  trains  carry  you  hence 
direct  to  Europe,  and  rapid  steamers  convey 
passengers  to  and  from  Shanghai  in  connection 
therewith.  The  trade  for  1913  was  considerable, 
but  85  per  cent,  of  it  was  Japanese.  The  Chinese 
Maritime  Customs  takes  cognisance  of  it,  and  the 
question  of  duties  payable  is  a  matter  of  arrange- 
ment based  upon  the  plan  accepted  by  Germany 
at  Kiao  Chou. 

(26)  Tientsin  exported  large  quantities  of 
camels'  wool  and  straw-braid  in  1880  ;  cotton 
goods  and  opium  were  the  leading  imports,  but 
she  ranked  fairly  low  down  in  the  comparative 
scale,' — far  below  such  ports  as  Hankow  or  Foo- 
chow.  "  Syndicates,"  bent  on  "  concessions  "  of 
all  kinds,  then  began  to  arrive  ;  there  was  great 
activity  in  connection  with  China's  new  navy  and 
naval  stations  ;  the  opening  of  Corea  brought 
fresh  steamers  to  the  port,  and  its  development 
continued  through  the  time  of  the  Japanese  war 
in  1894-5,  and  the  subsequent  extraordinary 
energy  displayed  by  the  Chinese  in  raising  new 
armies  (1896-1900).  After  the  "  Boxer  "  peace 
settlement  of  1901,  the  Viceroy  Yiian  Shi-k'ai 
completely  reformed  and  rehabilitated  the  place. 
The  trade  had  nearly  trebled  itself  during  the 
ten  years  preceding  his  arrival,  and  now  ranks 
next  to  that  of  Hankow  in  value  ;  even  above  it 
in  revenue  collection.  Wool  and  raw  cotton  are 
the  chief  exports.  The  wool  is  chiefly  sheep's, 
which  comes  in  enormous  quantities  from  distant 


168  MODERN  TRADE  [chap,  vii 

Mongolia;  just  as  Tibetan  wool,  starting  from 
near  the  same  tracts,  goes  to  Chungking ;  but 
there  is  a  fair  amount  of  camels'  wool  too.  The 
value  of  hides,  skins,  and  hair  is  about  half  that 
of  the  wool.  Cotton  goods  are  the  leading  im- 
ports, Japanese  yarn  being  specially  prominent. 
Others  worth  special  mention  are  kerosene  and 
munitions  of  war.  The  former  immense  im.por- 
tation  of  foreign  and  native  opium  is  a  thing  of 
the  past.  It  will  assist  us  in  forming  an  idea  of 
the  topographical  laws  which  explain  the  most 
ancient  Chinese  migrations  and  settlements,  if 
we  accept  the  dictum  that  the  trade  area  of 
Tientsin  embraces  all  between  the  sea  and  the 
left  bank  of  the  Yellow  River  up  to  Mongolia, 
including  both  banks  of  the  northernmost  River 
Bend  down  to  Ning-hia,  the  ancient  capital  of 
Marco  Polo's  Tangut,  and  to  the  outposts  of 
Tibet.  In  fact,  there  are  three  drainage  areas 
in  China  for  trade,  and  the  sea  outlets  are  Tien- 
tsin, Shanghai,  and  Canton. 

(27)  Ts'in-wang  Tao,  nine  miles  north  of  the 
new  sanatorium  Pei-tai  Ho  (near  the  Shan-hai 
Kwan),  had  since  1898  been  much  talked  of  as  a 
"  voluntary  port,"  like  San-tu  Ao ;  but  the 
trouble  with  the  "  Boxers "  postponed  the 
completion  of  that  arrangement  until  1903.  The 
advantage  of  this  port  is  that  it  is  always  free 
from  ice,  and  therefore  affords  a  better  and 
nearer  channel  for  the  K'ai-Lan  (Anglo-Chinese) 
Company's  coal  export  than  Taku. 

Kalgan,  at  the  Great  Wall,  is  perhaps  entitled 
to  a  cursory  mention,  although,  in  spite  of  its 
excellent  new  Peking  railway,  it  is  not  exactly  a 
*'  port,"  even  in  the  same  limited  sense  as  the 
inland  and  railway  connected  towns  of  Meng-tsz 
and  Lungchow,  for  it  is  not  under  the  Foreign 
Customs.  About  40,000  tons  of  tea  used  to 
go    overland   through   this   place   to   Mongolia, 


A.D.  1870-1914.]      RUSSIAN    TEA    TRADE  169 

employing  for  conveyance  about  200,000  camels. 
These,  it  appears,  are  largely  the  same  animals 
that  bring  sheep's  wool  to  Tientsin  from  the 
region  of  Kokonor — that  is,  from  the  entrepot 
of  Baotu,  on  the  Yellow  River,  which  has  already 
been  twice  mentioned  in  the  chapter  upon  "  Trade 
Routes."  About  the  year  1870  I  paid  three  visits 
to  Kalgan,  and  even  then  there  was  a  consider- 
able Russian  settlement,  which  in  1900  was  des- 
troyed by  the  "  Boxers."  The  Kalgan  tea  trade 
is  not  so  important  to  Russia  now  that  direct 
steamers  of  the  largest  size  run  from  Hankow 
to  Odessa,  and  even  to  Cronstadt ;  such  as  it  is, 
the  Russians  bemoan  its  decadence,  and  the  de- 
cline of  Kiachta  energy.  In  1913  the  export  by 
Chinese  of  green  brick  tea  from  Kewkiang  to 
Mongolia  was  forbidden  for  a  time,  and  this  gave 
the  Russians  a  short  opportunity  as  related  on 
p.  163.  In  the.  year  1872  I  went  up  the  Yang- 
tsze  with  the  captain  of  the  very  first  Russian 
steamer  destined  for  the  ocean  trade,  and  towards 
1899  there  were  about  six  of  them  clearing  for 
the  Black  Sea  or  the  Baltic  every  year.  The 
Russian  entries  and  clearances  for  1914  were 
55  ships  of  55,000  tons,  which  would  give  an 
average  of  2,000  tons  a  steamer.  But  these 
remarks  belong  strictly  to  Hankow. 

Kia-yiih  Kwan  (lat.  40°  N.,  long.  98°  E.)  pos- 
sessed a  "  foreign  "  custom-house,  supported  by 
the  Hankow  office,  but  there  was  no  European 
there.  Since  1885  there  had  been  a  full  staff, 
with  scarcely  any  work  to  do.  The  idea  was  to 
accommodate  the  Russians  who  had  begun  to 
take  tea  in  increasing  quantities  up  the  Han 
River,  navigable  for  small  steamers  300  miles, 
and  for  junks  600  more  ;  but  a  natural  death 
seems  to  have  practically  put  an  end  to  both 
causes  and  effects. 

(28)  Chefoo,  like  Tientsin,  was  an  exporter  of 


170  MODERN  TRADE  [chap,  vii 

straw-braid  and  beancake  in  1880  ;  her  pongee 
silks,  the  product  of  the  "  oak-worm  "  hke  those 
of  Newchwang,  were  also  coming  to  the  front. 
They  are  now  well  known  in  Great  Britain  under 
the  name  of  "  Shantungs."  The  total  trade  for 
1899  was  in  tael  value  more  than  three  times  that 
of  1880.  The  energy  of  the  Germans  at  Kiao 
Chou  soon  reduced  the  Chefoo  trade  to  stagnancy, 
for  in  1913  Chefoo  had  dropped  to  9,000,000  taels, 
whilst  Kiao  Chou  had  gone  up  to  65,000,000. 
Of  course  the  opening  of  Corea  had  considerable 
effect  on  Chefoo's  external  development  up  to 
1899,  for  internally  the  port  only  deals  with  its 
immediate  neighbourhood,  and  to  this  day  there 
is  no  railway.  In  cotton  goods  America  still 
rules  the  roost.  The  cattle  and  straw-braid 
exports,  once  so  prominent,  are  now  dead. 
There  is  an  immense  annual  "  export  "  of  coolies 
to  Vladivostock,  and  as  a  port  of  call  Chefoo 
shows  shipping  activity  besides  being  a  summer 
health  resort. 

(29)  Kiao  Chou,  or  Ts'ing-tao,  is  another  "  free 
port "  of  the  rather  suspicious  "  leasehold  "  type ; 
but,  unlike  Ta-lien  Wan,  it  fell  almost  from  the 
beginning  (since  1st  July,  1899)  under  the  ken  of 
the  Foreign  or  Maritime  Customs  ;  it  was  offici- 
ally opened  in  May,  1899,  during  which  year  the 
total  trade  amounted  to  2,200,000  taels.  But  it 
was  not  "  free  "  to  inter-port  trade  at  all ;  and 
the  custom-house  was  only  for  the  mainland 
commerce.  However,  in  1906  fresh  arrangements 
were  made,  its  "  free "  status  was  abolished, 
full  import  and  export  duties  were  levied,  and 
Germany  received  20  per  cent,  of  them  for  her 
trouble  as  middle-man.  Since  the  Japanese  took 
it  in  1914  it  has  been  standing  by  in  a  more  or 
less  limp  condition,  v\^aiting  imtil  the  war  clouds 
roll  away. 

Tsi-nan,  the  capital  of  Shan  Tung  province, 


A.D.  1882-1916]    THE  LION  AND  THE  LAMB     171 

became  a  "  port  "  in  1906,  and  is  connected  with 
Kiao  Chou  by  railway,  now  also  run  by  the 
Japanese.  When  the  "  voluntary  settlement  " 
was  opened,  it  was  officially  stated  that  there 
would  be  "  no  hurry  "  about  a  custom-house. 
Meanwhile  the  Germans  established  themselves 
in  force,  and  hustled  in  their  own  way  until  the 
Japanese  gave  them  walking  orders. 

Wei-hai  Wei  has  a  status  as  a  "  port  "  even 
vaguer  than  that  of  its  Russian  and  German 
colleagues,  and  it  is  not  in  any  way  affiliated  to 
the  Foreign  Customs.  Under  the  benign  rule  of 
Sir  James  Stewart  Lockhart,  the  British  lion 
here  lies  peaceably  with  the  Chinese  lamb,  and 
as  a  "naval  port"  this  place  alone  (since  1916) 
enjoys  the  blessings  of  a  penny  postage  in 
Chinese  waters. 

Corea,  which,  as  a  vassal  state,  was  opened 
to  foreign  ships  only  in  1882,  passed  to  the 
status  of  an  independent  "  empire  "  ;  but  after 
being  buffeted  about  between  Russia  and  Japan, 
and  enduring  for  a  generpvtion  the  slings  and 
arrows  of  outrageous  fortune,  she  has  by  a  facilis 
descensus  settled  down  to  prosperous  obscurity 
as  a  Japanese  province  under  a  Governor- 
General — Requiescat  in  pace ! 

(30)  We  now  come  to  Shanghai,  the  great 
heart  from  the  pulsations  of  which  nearly  all  the 
above  derive  their  arterial  not  to  say  artificial 
nutriment,  and  to  the  invigorating  action  of 
which  they  drive  their  venous  not  to  say  venal 
blood  for  further  treatment  and  distribution. 
In  1880  this  great  emporium  had  a  direct  trade 
of  over  92,000,000  taels,  two-fifths  exports  and 
three-fifths  imports.  The  foreign  complications 
with  Russia  and  France  helped  to  depress  busi- 
ness for  some  years,  but  in  1886  trade  recovered, 
and  by  1891  it  had  totalled  165,000,000  taels. 
It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that  these 


172  MODERN  TRADE  [chap,  vii 

are  gross  figures,  for  a  large  part  of  the  Shanghai 
trade  reappears  in  the  form  of  Tientsin,  Hankow, 
or  even  Swatow  trade.  The  true  trade  of  Shang- 
hai, less  re-exports,  for  the  year  1899  is  only 
125,000,000  taels,  and  for  1913,  207,250,000 
taels.  On  the  other  hand,  the  gross  trade  of 
Shanghai  (including  everything  from  or  to  any- 
where under  all  conditions)  was  in  1899  nearly 
308,000,000  taels  (roughly,  £40,000,000),  and  in 
1913,  533,500,000  taels  (roughly,  £80,500,000). 
To  understand  the  complicated  distinctions 
between  gross  and  net  totals,  viewed  from 
various  standpoints,  it  is  necessary  for  those 
particularly  interested  to  study  the  published 
returns,  customs  as  well  as  consular ;  and  it 
must  also  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  sterling 
value  of  the  tael  fluctuates  widely  :  at  present 
(1917)  silver  is  extraordinarily  high,  partly  on 
account  of  Hongkong  prohibitions. 

(34-46)  There  are  still  a  number  of  ports  or 
quasi-ports  which  ought  to  be  casually  noticed. 
The  trade  of  Indo-China  for  1899  amounted 
to  nearly  £10,000,000  (say  70,000,000  taels), 
of  which  Tonquin  took  over  £2,500,000  (say 
17,500,000  taels).  Reports  are  irregular  and 
unsatisfactory,  but  I  take  it  £20,000,000  and 
£5,000,000  would  be  nearer  the  mark  for  1913. 
The  trade  with  Mengtsz  ( Yiin  Nan)  via  Haiphong, 
the  Red  River,  and  Hokow  on  the  French 
frontier,  was  opened  in  1889,  and  amounted  in 
1899  to  5,250,000  taels,  all  conducted  by  Chinese 
merchants,  and  mostly  carried  on,  in  mere  transit, 
through  Tonquin,  with  Hongkong  ;  the  figure 
for  1913  was  19,750,000  taels,  and  would  have 
been  much  larger  but  for  the  cessation  of.  the 
opium  traffic.  As  early  as  1140  the  new  Li 
dynasty  of  Tonquin  had  opened  a  port,  corre- 
sponding with  the  modern  Haiphong,  to  the 
trade  of  Siam  and  Burma,  but  there  is  no  specific 


A.D.  1140-1913]       REMOTE   "  PORTS  "  178 

mention  of  it  in  Chinese  history.  Trade  seems 
to  have  then  centred  at  Tourane,  or  rather 
at  "  Faifo,"  about  20  miles  up  the  river.  The 
*' port "  of  Lungchow  (Kwang  Si)  was  also 
opened  in  1889  :  the  trade  in  1899  was  not 
only  contemptible  in  amount,  but  was  abso- 
lutely declining — the  total  was  under  86,000 
taels.  After  the  extension  of  the  Langson 
railway,  in  1902,  it  rose  gradually  to  900,000 
taels  in  1908  :  reports  are  scarce,  but  as  its 
customs  revenue  for  1913  only  barely  reached 
5,000  taels,  and  as  in  any  case  the  French 
only  are  concerned,  we  may  ignore  the  place. 
Sz-mao  (Yiin  Nan)  promises  better.  It  was 
opened  to  the  French  in  1895,  and  to  the 
British  in  1896,  as  already  stated  under  the  head 
"  Arrival  of  Europeans."  The  average  annual 
trade  in  1899  had  been  about  225,000  taels — so 
far,  chiefly  cotton  from  the  British  Shan  states  ; 
but  both  in  total  trade  and  in  revenue  it  is 
little  better  off  than  Lungchow,  and  consuls  no 
longer  report  upon  it.  Of  Kwang-chou  Wan, 
the  new  French  station  in  the  Lei-chou  Peninsula, 
leased  in  1898,  it  is  difficult  to  say  anything, 
except  that  there  is  a  good  native  trade  with 
Macao  and  Kongmun  ;  however,  it  is  a  free  port, 
and  in  no  way  falls  under  the  Chinese  (Foreign 
or  Maritime)  Customs. 

Kongmun  and  Kumchuk  have  both  been 
mentioned  as  being  under  Sam-shui  (p.  153) ; 
but  in  the  Foreign  Customs  revenue  lists  avail- 
able to  me  Kongmun  ranks  (separately)  higher 
than  its  parent  port,  whilst  Kumchuk  is  not 
enumerated  at  all.  Ch'ang-sha  has  been  treated 
of  under  the  head  of  its  parent  and  guardian 
Yochou  (p.  161),  whose  revenue  it  more  than 
doubles.  Nan-ning,  which  was  declared  an  open 
"  port "  in  1907,  has  already  been  discussed 
under  Wu-chou  (p.  155),  though  it  has  separate 


174  MODERN  TRADE  [chap,  vii 

customs  mention  as  one  of  the  forty-seven.  Man- 
chouli,  Aigun,  Hunchun,  and  Suifenho  on  or  near 
the  Russian  frontiers  ;  Lungchingtsun  in  Kirin  ; 
Antung  and  Tatungkow  on  or  near  the 
Japanese  (Corean)  frontiers  ;  and  Harbin  where 
Russian  and  Japanese  interests  meet,  are  all  in 
the  list  of  forty-seven  revenue  ports  managed 
by  the  Inspector-General  at  Peking ;  but  there 
are  special  arrangements  with  both  Russia  and 
Japan  as  to  the  nationality  of  the  officials  in 
charge,  and  other  matters ;  besides  which  British 
interests  are  only  remotely  concerned  in  Man- 
churian  regions  except  in  so  far  as  preferential 
freights  and  duties  are  on  the  tapis.  Finally 
there  is  Momein  or  T'eng-yiieh  (pp.  74,  101)  which 
was  opened  in  1902  and  achieved  its  humble 
"  record  "  of  475,000  taels  in  1913  with  a  customs 
revenue  of  65,000  taels  ;  but  de  minimis  non 
curat  lex  :  when  the  railway  from  Bhamo  joins 
up  with  it,  no  doubt  the  world  will  discover  its 
potentialities. 

Then  there  are  Kiang-tsz,  Gnatong  or  Yatung 
(Darjiling),  and  Gartok  (source  of  the  Indus), 
which  (Tibet  being  independent)  the  Foreign 
Customs  has  ceased  to  mention.  Also  Ta-chien-lu 
(Darchendo),  the  trade  for  1913  in  which  place  Mr. 
Assistant  King  (presumably  from  the  Ch'eng-tu 
Consulate-General)  surprises  us  by  describing  this 
very  year  (1916) ;  as  the  Tibetans  every  now  and 
again  eject  the  Chinese,  and  as  the  Chinese  soldiers 
themselves  periodically  sack  the  town  in  order 
to  recover  their  pay,  it  must  be  a  parlous  spot  for 
capitalists  just  now.  Then  there  is  Yiin-nan  Fu 
(the  word/?^  now  abolished),  which  was  opened  as 
a  "  voluntary  "  port  in  1905  ;  P'u-k'ou,  opposite 
Nanking  (pp.  164-5),  sanctioned  in  1915  because 
Nanking's  shore  port  Hia-kwan  is  not  convenient 
for  transhipments  ;  two  high  officers  have  been 
appointed   to   supervise   the   building   arrange- 


OWING  THE  POSITION  OF  ALL  PORTS 
RTS  OPEN  TO  FOREIGN  TRADE  UNDER 
?EIGN  CUSTOMS  BUT  EXCLUDING  THE 
!  RUSSO-JAPANESE  LAND  "PORTS" 
\CHURIA 


r 


A.D.  1896-1916]      ODDS    AND    ENDS  175 

ments.  Lung-k'ou  on  the  north  side  of  the  Shan 
Tung  promontory  was  made  a  subordinate  office 
of  the  Chefoo  customs  in  1915  :  the  Japanese 
for  some  years  before  the  war  had  been  making 
use  of  this  place,  and  they  made  it  a  sort  of 
land  base  in  1914  for  taking  the  Germans  in  the 
rear.  In  1905  the  great  marts  of  Chou-ts'un 
and  Wei  Men  in  Shan  Tung  were  made  sub- 
sidiary to  the  Tsi-nan  customs  when  established 
(p.  170).  Ch'ih-feng  in  North  Chih  Li  (well 
north  of  Jehol)  was  declared  a  trading  mart  by 
mandate  of  January  last  (1916).  In  1905  quite 
a  number  of  "  voluntary  "  places  for  trade  were 
opened  in  different  parts  of  Manchuria — to  wit, 
Feng-hwang,  Liao-yang,  Sin-min-t'un,  T'iehling, 
T'ung-kiang-tsz,  Fak'umen,  K'wan-ch'eng-tsz 
(that  is,  Ch'ang-ch'un),  Kirin,  Ninguta,  Sansing, 
Tsitsihar,  etc.  Kin  Men  (Kin-chou  Fu)  was 
"  voluntarily "  opened  in  February  1916,  and 
Mukden  would  seem  to  be  another  voluntary 
mart. 

In  enumerating  these  odds  and  ends  of 
"  ports  "  over  and  above  the  orthodox  47,  I 
must  appeal  for  consideration  in  the  matter 
of  spelling.  First  there  is  the  old-fashioned 
customary  spelling ;  then  there  is  Sir  Thomas 
Wade's  Pekingese  (as  modified  by  myself)  ; 
then  there  is  the  irregular  Chinese  official  Post- 
Office  spelling  ;  and  finally  the  spelling  adopted 
by  the  Foreign  Customs.  It  is  almost  impossible 
so  to  decide  in  each  case  as  to  please  everybody. 

(47)  Soochow  has  not  often  been  included  in 
the  special  trade  reports  issued  by  the  Foreign 
Office,  and  is  really  a  mere  appendage  of  Shang- 
hai. Still,  in  1896  it  acquired  the  dignity  of 
being  an  "  open  port  "  on  its  own  basis  (see 
p.  116),  and  its  separate  trade  under  the  Foreign 
Customs  had  in  1899  already  reached  1,500,000 
taels  a  year  ;  for  many  years  subsequent  to  that 


176  MODERN  TRADE  [chap,  vii 

it  oscillated  above  and  below  5,000,000  taels ;  but 
besides  this  there  is  the  trade  which  pays  the 
likin  offices  rather  than  the  Foreign  Customs, 
which  cannot  be  "  squared."  Foreign  influence 
is,  however,  more  specially  concerned  there  in 
developing  spinning  mills  and  silk  filatures. 
The  Shanghai-Nanking  railway  brings  it  within 
easy  reach.  There  is  a  University,  and  there  are 
a  few  foreigners  in  the  Customs,  Post-office,  etc. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

THE    GOVERNMENT 

At  first  sight  it  might  appear  that,  in  describing 
the  Government  of  China,  we  should  begin  with 
the  Emperor,  or  at  least,  now  that  a  Republic 
has  been  established,  with  the  Central  Admini- 
stration at  Peking.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  the 
Manchu  power  was  a  mere  absorptive  machine, 
whose  very  existence  (as  recent  events  have 
shown)  was  a  matter  of  comparative  unconcern 
to  the  provinces,  each  of  which  is  even  now 
sufficient  unto  itself;  and  exists,  tries  to  exist, 
or  can  exist  as  an  independent  unit.  Hence,  just 
as,  for  the  moment,  we  have  in  the  first  chapter 
eliminated  Tibet,  Mongolia,  Manchuria,  etc., 
from  the  field,  and  have  confined  our  preliminary 
geographical  view  of  the  Empire  to  the  Eighteen 
Provinces,  so  do  we  for  the  present  dismiss  the 
President  and  his  Ministry,  as  we  formerly  did 
the  Emperor  and  his  Court,  from  consideration, 
and  limit  our  survey  to  what  is  really  the  living 
and  active  administration — to  wit,  the  general 
constitution  of  China  Proper,  a  confederation. of 
more  or  less  homogeneous  provinces. 

It  will  be  noticed  from  the  list  given  in  the  first 
chapter  that  nearly  every  one  of  these  provinces 
has  an  ancient  and  purely  territorial  name,  in 
addition  to  its  present  practical  or  descriptive 
appellation  ;  this  ancient  or  literary  name  is, 
notwithstanding  political  changes,  still  used  in 

177 


Its  THE  GOVERNMENT  [chap,  viii 

official  documents  quite  as  often  as  the  modern 
one.  Thus  the  Canton  Military  Governor,  who 
in  effect  replaces  the  former  Viceroy,  says  : 
"  Your  despatch  has  reached  Yiieh  "  ;  and  the 
Shan  Si  Civil  Governor,  in  discussing  likin,  in 
the  usual  terse  literary  style,  talks  of  '"  Tsin 
Zi."  It  is  just  as  though  the  modern  French 
departmental  prefects  were  to  use  the  old  pro- 
vincial terms  Gascony  and  Burgundy  more 
freely  than  they  do  ;  or  as  though  we  English 
should,  for  elegant  purposes,  retain  the  official 
use  of  such  words  as  Mercia  and  Wessex. 

Now,  subject  to  qualifications  which  will 
hereinafter  be  made,  the  main  idea  which  runs 
throughout  the  republican  provincial  organisa- 
tion is  as  follows  :  Each  province  has  both  a 
Military  and  a  Civil  Governor,  who  report  on  all 
formal  matters  to  the  Board  at  Peking,  and  of 
late  have  shown  a  tendency  to  "  wire  "  their 
sentiments  direct  to  the  President :  affairs  on 
this  point  have  not  yet  consolidated  themselves. 
About  320  years  ago  pairs  or  triplets  of  provinces 
began  to  have  a  temporary  Viceroy  or  Governor- 
General  in  addition  to  the  governors  ;  and  when 
the  Marichus  came  to  consolidate  their  power, 
in  1640-50,  such  viceroys  became  permanent; 
until,  after  various  re-shufflings,  they  settled 
down  to  a  definite  distribution,  very  nmch  as 
they  were  until  1911.  The  original  motive  in 
appointing  a  viceroy  was  not  unlike  our  idea 
in  appointing  Sir  Bartle  Frere  or  Sir  Hercules 
Robinson  as  High  Commissioner  for  South 
Africa  ;  that  is,  military  or  other  urgent  con- 
siderations rendered  it  expedient  for  one  strong 
man  to  deal  with  some  wide  question,  involving 
more  than  one  gubernatorial  or  divisional  interest. 
But  now  one  very  radical  change  has  taken  place 
in  China,  and  shows  every  sign  of  permanency  ; 
each  province  is  free  from  the  joint  rule  or  part 


A.D.  1905-1911]    PROVINCIAL  GOVERNMENT     179 

superintendence  of  any  other  province.  True,  the 
precise  relative  duties  of  the  Mihtary  Governor 
and  Civil  Governor  are  not  yet  permanently 
fixed,  but  at  all  events  they  do  not  "  move  " 
for  each  other's  consent  and  signature  any 
longer,  and  the  Penlow-Jorkins  farce  that  used 
to  characterise  the  joint  powers  of  the  Viceroy 
and  the  Governor  in  Manchu  times  has  entirely 
ceased.  The  rendering  of  both  officials'  titles  has 
changed  three  or  four  times  since  the  provinces 
"  pronounced  "  in  1911,  but  now  it  seems  de- 
finitely settled  that  Tuh-kiln  (Army  Director) 
and  Sheng-chang  (Province  Senior)  are  most  in 
accord  with  democratic  needs.  It  is  still  "good 
form  "  to  avoid  using  personal  ("  Christian  ") 
names;  but  the  old  appellations  of  "great 
man"  (excellency),  "old  grandfather"  (your 
honour),  etc.,  have  gone  by  the  board,  and  now 
every  man,  from  the  President  downwards,  is  plain 
Sien-sheng,  or  "  Mister  "  ;  that  is,  "  former  born," 
or  Senor.  It  happens  occasionally  that  the 
Military  Governor  acts  also  for  the  Civil,  or 
vice  versa,  and  no  special  qualifications  are  (as 
yet)  required  for  either ;  but  no  doubt,  as  the 
Republic  "  finds  its  helm,"  these  matters  will 
gradually  be  righted. 

Those  picturesque  functionaries  the  Treasurer 
and  the  Judge,  whose  joint  or  several  recom- 
mendations used  to  "  move  "  the  Viceroy  and 
Governor  (jointly  or  separately)  to  "  act,"  still 
in  a  measure  exist  (after  many  shiftings)  under 
the  names  of  Finance  Senior  and  Interior  Affairs 
Senior;  but  they  are  both  now  in  a  more  sub- 
ordinate position,  and  moreover  both  take  orders 
direct  from  the  Peking  Boards. 

More  or  less  successful  attempts  had  been  made 

by   the   Manchus    since    1905    to   separate   the 

Executive  from  the  Judicial  powers,  and  these 

efforts  have  been  continued  under  the  Republic. 

14 


180  THE   GOVERNMENT  [chap,  viii 

Thus  we  have  three  grades  of  Judges  and  Justices 
in  each  province,  appointed  by  the  Peking 
Ministry  of  Justice,  and  (as  I  understand  it)  in 
no  way  responsible  to  the  Mihtary  or  Civil 
Governor,  or  to  their  subordinates  the  Finance 
and  Interior  Elders  or  Seniors. 

Nominally,   at  least,   each  of  the  "  Eighteen 
Provinces  "    (that  is,   twenty -two)   is   equal   to 
the  others,  but  naturally  a  rich  or  important 
province  still  continues  to  be  coveted  by  the 
avaricious  or  ambitious  man.     Yet  there  are  a 
few  further  irregularities  in  detail  which  some- 
what upset  the  perfect  symmetry  of  this  com- 
paratively simple  arrangement  as  a  whole.     In 
order    to    deal    adequately    with    the    Mongols, 
Tibetans,  Turki,  and  other  non-Chinese  peoples, 
it  has  been  found  necessary  to  keep  up  certain 
military  proconsulships  on  the  basis  of  indepen- 
dent  provinces.      Thus  the  extramural  part  of 
Chih  Li  remains  under  the  tu-fung  of  Jehol,  and 
the  extramural  part  of  Shan  Si  under  the  tu-fung 
of    Kukukhoto,   undemocratic    titles    included. 
Evidently  it  would  not  do  to  shock  the  Mongol 
princes,    dukes,    etc.   (who   still   carry  Manchu 
titles),  by  placing  them  under  a  mere  citoyen. 
In  the  same  way  there  are  special  arrangements 
for  the  Kokonor,  Hi,  Altai,  and  Tibetan  frontiers, 
at  all  which  places,  however,  it  has  been  found 
possible   to   abolish   the   old   Manchu   titles   in 
favour  of  miore  democratic  appellations  ;    still, 
when   the   Boards  send  circular  orders  to    the 
provinces,   the   "  scratch "    governors    of   these 
more  or  less  foreign-infected  regions  are  treated 
quite  on  the  basis  of  "  real  men." 

As  to  Outer  Mongolia,  after  declaring  its 
independence  under  the  Urga  "Saint"  and  ac- 
cepting Russian  protection  in  a  certain  measure, 
it  has  come  back  to  the  Chinese  fold  under 
conditions  regulated  by  treaty  between  Russia 


A.D.  1912]      THE    EJECTED    MANCHUS  181 

and  China  ;  the  only  unsettled  question  (as 
I  write)  is  whether  his  Holiness  should  send 
members  to  the  Chinese  Parliament. 

The  ejected  Manchus  give  no  trouble  at  all. 
The  princes  and  nobles  enjoy  their  pensions 
and  private  estates  under  the  liberal  arrange- 
ments solemnly  made  by  President  Yiian  Shi- 
k'ai  in  1912,  and  no  doubt  he  was  wise  in  thus 
purchasing  their  innocuousness.  A  few  able 
Manchus  are  still  employed  as  high  republican 
officials,  but  the  bulk  of  the  mixed  Pekingese 
and  the  purer  provincial  garrison  Manchus  seem 
to  have  quietly  "  relapsed  "  into  Chinese,  just 
as  Bosnians,  Greeks,  Serbians,  Bulgarians,  etc., 
with  facility  relapse  into  "  Turks  "  when  occa- 
sion required.  The  "wild"  Manchus,  Tungusic 
hunters,  etc.,  remain  as  they  were,  and  are 
probably  unaware  that  any  important  change 
has  taken  place  at  all ;  they  are  of  no  more 
political  importance  than  our  gipsies. 

Now,  each  of  these  Eighteen  Provinces  is,  as 
already  suggested,  a  complete  state  in  itself, 
whose  corporate  existence  is  in  no  way  dependent 
upon  any  other  state,  except  in  so  far  that  the 
poor  ones  dun  the  rich  ones  for  the  money  which 
the  Central  Government  still  in  theory  "  appro- 
priates to  them,". — when,  indeed,  it  has  even  itself 
any  money  to  work  upon  at  all.  Each  province 
had  its  own  army,  navy,  system  of  taxation, 
and  its  own  social  customs ;  but,  as  regards  the 
army  and  navy,  things  are  still  in  a  state  of  flux, 
though  the  tendency  is,  of  course,  to  gather 
power  as  much  as  possible  into  central  hands  :  so 
it  is  better  not  to  attempt  any  closer  definitions 
at  present.  The  Salt  Gabelle  has  been  com- 
pletely revolutionised  and  improved  under  the 
able  direction  of  Sir  Richard  Dane,  and  this 
source  of  revenue  is  now  almost  as  important 
as    the    Maritime    Customs.     Still,    as    regards 


182  THE  GOVERNMENT  [chap,  vm 

provincial  "  rights,"  it  is  too  early  to  make  any 
satisfying  statement. 

Many  new  taxes  have  been  introduced,  both 
under  the  Manchus  and  the  Republic,  since  war 
indemnities  and  loans  practically  absorbed  the 
whole  "regular"  revenues  of  China.  This  did 
not  matter  so  much  to  Peking,  for  the  existence 
or  non-existence  of  a  central  bureaucracy  was 
never  essential  to  the  corporate  life  of  China  ; 
but  the  democratic  "King's  Government"  in 
the  provinces  had  to  be  carried  on,  and  therefore 
innumerable  new  levies  in  the  shape  of  wine, 
tobacco,  and  house  duties;  stamp,  licence,  and 
various  other  excise  duties  ;  transfer  fees,  gam- 
bling farms,  and  other  "  special  "  charges  and 
monopolies  have  one  after  the  other  been  in- 
troduced or  developed  by  way  of  "  raising  the 
wind  "  for  the  sailing  of  the  provincial  barque. 

Nor  is  the  provincial  government  more  essen- 
tial to  popular  life  than  the  central,  from  which 
it  only  differs  in  this' — ^that  it  can  get  at  the 
people  directly.  China  can  get  on  very  well' — 
so  long  as  bandits  do  not  disturb  order- — without 
any  government  at  all ;  it  is  like  a  vast  india- 
rubber  ball,  which  immediately  rights  itself  after 
each  squeeze.  Amid  all  this  welter,  one  thing 
is  now  certain.  Peking  can  no  longer  "  sell  " 
each  province  to  the  highest  bidder  or  present 
it  to  the  first  favourite.  Corruption  seems  to  be 
as  bad  as  ever ;  but  at  least  the  Chinese  stew 
in  their  own  juice,  and  are  not  dished  up  for  the 
sole  delectation  of  idle  Manchus  ;  moreover,  the 
huge  first  charge  on  all  provincial  revenues  for 
"  Peking  Contingent  "  no  longer  exists  except 
in  the  moderated  shape  of  pensions  granted  to 
the  former  ruling  classes  in  consideration  of  their 
retiring  from  the  empire  trade,  and  this  sum  (if 
paid)  is  not  "  appropriated  "  from  the  provinces. 

In  justice  to  Peking,  however,  it  must  be  con- 


A.D.  1917]       BARBERS    AND    BARBARIANS       183 

fessed  that  it  does  and  has  done  much  for  justice, 
education,  means  of  communication  (railways, 
telegraphs,  etc.),  postal  facilities,  encourage- 
ment of  industries,  improvement  of  water- 
courses, some  sanitary  matters,  and  a  thousand 
and  one  minor  things  in  many  instances  totally 
ignored  by  the  Manchus  ;  in  spite  of  the  dismal 
tale  of  revolutions,  China  has  marched,  but 
she  still  remains  the  "  free  and  easy  "  country 
she  always  was.  There  are  no  passports,  no 
restraints  on  liberty,  no  frontiers,  no  caste 
prejudices,  no  food  scruples,  no  finnikin 
sanitary  measures,  no  moral  laws  except  popular 
customs  and  criminal  statutes.  China  is  in 
many  senses  one  vast  republic,  in  which  personal 
restraints  have  no  existence; — in  a  word,  Kip- 
ling's ideal  place  "  east  of  Suez."  The  Manchus, 
as  the  ruling  race,  had  certainly  a  few  privileges, 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  they  suffered  just  as 
many  disabilities.  Barbers,  play-actors,  and 
policemen  in  Manchu  times  were  under  a  mild 
tabu — more  theoretical  than  real ;  but  now  the 
barber  has  partly  disappeared  with  the  pigtail ; 
male  play-actors  are  not  given  to  the  vices  of 
Manchu  fashion  so  much,  w^iilst  real  women 
now  act,  and  very  often  the  modern  policemen 
are  quite  exemxplary  individuals.  On  the  other 
hand,  aboriginal  "  barbarians  "  always  could  and 
still  can  easily  become  Chinese  by  reading  books 
and  putting  on  breeches — or  "  some  veskits," 
as  Artemus  Ward  used  to  say  :  in  fact  several 
of  the  most  prominent  Military  Governors  of  the 
moment  are  by  descent  of  the  Shan  or  the 
Miao-tsz  race.  This  being  the  happy-go-lucky 
condition  of  high  office  in  China,  there  is  (apart 
from  accidental  or  special  causes)  no  jealousy  or 
class  feeling  in  the  country ;  it  is  simply  a 
question  of  big  fish  feeding  on  little  fish,  unless 
and  untiHthe  little  fish  can  keep  out  of  the  way, 


184  THE   GOVERNMENT  [chap,  viii 

eat  their  way  up,  and  become  big  fish  them- 
selves ;  and,  so  far,  things  under  the  Republic 
seem  too  much  as  they  were  under  the  Empire, 
private  gain,  as  before,  taking  precedence  of  the 
public  weal.     The  exceptions  are  rare. 

Each  provincial  government  being  thus  a 
state  in  itself,  how  does  it  go  to  work  ?  It 
must  be  explained  in  ansv/er  to  this  question 
that  the  true  official  unit  of  Chinese  corporate 
life  is  the  Men,  or  "  city  district,"  and  for  2,000 
years  past  there  have  been  some  1,300  of  them  ; 
even  allowing  for  the  recent  republican  changes 
(shortly  to  be  described),  there  cannot  be  much 
over  1,600.  Each  average  province  is  divided 
into  from  70  to  over  100  hien,  a  term  variously 
translated  by  Europeans  "  district,"  "  depart- 
ment," "  canton,"  or  "  prefecture."  The  half- 
barbarian  province  of  Kwei  Chou  has  only 
thirty-four  ;  but  then  it  has  numerous  "  autoch- 
thonous "  districts  besides;  that  is  to  say,  dis- 
tricts ruled  by  "  barbarian  "  magistrates,  usually 
hereditary,  but  responsible  to  the  nearest  genuine 
Chinese  magistrate  in  serious  matters.  Chih 
Li  has  nearly  140  ;  but  this  total  includes  the 
Peking  and  Mongol  districts  of  the  Jehol  com- 
manderie.  A  hien  is  in  area  about  the  size  of 
an  English  county,  or  a  French  department, 
with  the  same  uncertainty  or  irregularitj''  as  to 
area  and  importance.  It  alinost  always  con- 
sists, in  purely  Chinese  tracts,  of  a  walled  city 
and  an  area  of,  say,  500  or  1,000  square  miles 
round  the  town.  Very  often  an  enormous  city 
of  lower  rank  forms  an  appendage  to  a  sleepy 
old  hien  ;  until  recently  this  was  the  case  with 
Hankow  :  it  has  a  parallel  in  England,  when  big 
new  towns  (as,  for  instance,  Liverpool  in  relation 
to  Walton)  "  iDclong  "  to  mere  village  parishes, 
until  they  receive  their  own  chartered  "rights." 
Every    Chinaman   is   described    first    of   all    as 


A.D.  1911-1917]     CHINESE    MUNICIPALITIES     185 

belonging  to  a  given  Men  ;  and  so  strong  is  the 
association  that  it  follows  him  through  life,  if, 
he  gains  distinction,  much  as  the  territorial 
surroundings  of  a  Scotch  or  French  magnate 
easily  attach  to  his  family  name.  Thus  Li 
Hung-chang  is  often  currently  described  as  the 
"  Hoh-fei  statesman,"  because  he  hails  from  the 
Men  of  Hoh-fei ;  whilst  his  illustrious  rival 
Chang  Chi-tung  is  similarly  called  by  newspaper 
men  the  "  Nan-p'i  viceroy,"  from  a  city  of  that 
name  on  the  Grand  Canal,  south  of  Peking ; 
so  the  President  Yiian  Shi-k'ai  on  the  day  of 
his  death  was  spoken  of  as  Hiang-ch'eng  (his 
birthplace)  :  it  is  like  our  "  Thank  ye,  thank 
ye,  Hawthornden." 

The  Men  magistrate  is  still,  under  the  Republic, 
the  very  heart  and  soul  of  all  official  life  and 
emolument,  his  dignity  and  attributes,  in  large 
centres  such  as  Canton  or  Chungking,  not  falling 
far  short  in  many  respects  of  those  of  the  Lord 
Mayor  of  London.  His  comparatively  low  rank 
places  him  in  easy  touch  with  the  people,  w^hilst 
his  position  as  the  lov/est  of  the  yu-sz,  or  com.mis- 
sioned  "  executive,"  clothes  him  with  a  status 
which  even  a  Military  Governor  must  respect.  He 
is  so  much  identified  with  the  soul  of  the  State, 
that  the  Emperor  or  Government  itself  used  to 
be  elegantly  styled  Men-kwan,  or  "  the  district 
magistrate."  He  was  before  1912  judge  in  the 
first  instance  in  all  matters  whatsoever,  civil  or 
criminal,  and  also  governor  of  the  gaol,  coroner, 
sheriff,  mayor,  head-surveyor,  civil  service  ex- 
aminer, tax-collector,  registrar,  lord-lieutenant, 
aedile,  chief  bailiff,  interceder  with  the  gods  ; 
and,  in  short,  what  the  people  always  call  him 
— "  father  and  mother  officer  "  ;  but  the  new 
republican  organisation  has  shorn  him  of  many 
of  these  attributes  ;  indeed  (as  just  said)  in  the 
last  years  of  the  Manchus  the  executive  and  legis- 


186  THE   GOVERNMENT  [chap,  viii 

lative  functions  were  bv  way  of  bein^  separated 
throughout  the  whole  official  body,  whilst  the  new 
Gendarmerie  Board  at  Peking  has  remodelled  the 
police.  The  hien  cuts  a  very  different  figure  in 
a  remote  country  district  from  that  accepted 
by  him  in  a  provincial  metropolis  like  Canton, 
where  he  is  apt  to  be  overshadov^^ed  by  innumer- 
able civil  and  military  superiors ;  just  as  in 
London  the  Lord  Mayor  is  outshone  in  a  sense, 
even  at  his  grand  "  spreads,"  by  the  Court  and 
the  Cabinet  Ministers.  In  his  own  remote  city 
the  hien  is  autocratic  and  everybody,  though 
possibly  now  the  new  local  councils  and  provin- 
cial parliaments  may  be  beginning  to  assert 
themselves.  He  had  no  technical  training  what- 
ever in  Manchu  times,  except  in  the  Chinese 
equivalent  for  "  Latin  verse  "  ;  if  he  had  ob- 
tained his  post  by  purchase  he  had  not  even  that. 
Now,  under  the  Republic,  there  have  been  sug- 
gested, if  not  established,  training  schools  for  ad- 
ministration, based  on  the  Japanese  system  of 
education,  which  even  in  the  last  Manchu  years 
was  seriously  proposed  as  a  general  educational 
model  for  China. 

The  "  value  "  of  every  hien  in  the  empire  is  of 
course  perfectly  well  known  ;  but  although  there 
are  bribery  and  corruption  at  Peking  as  well  as 
in  the  provinces,  the  solid  basis  of  government 
is  not  really  bad,  and  from  my  experience  of 
Chinese  officials  I  should  say  that  the  majority 
of  them  are  men  no  worse  than  American 
"  bosses,"' — ^that  is,  mere  hacks  or  hirelings  of  a 
corrupt  growth,  with  as  m.uch  "conscience"  as 
their  system  vouchsafes.  Purchase  of  official 
rank,  and  even  of  office,  has  been  sadly  on  the 
increase  ever  since  China  began  to  get  into 
trouble  with  rebels  and  Europeans  ;  even  now, 
under  the  republic,  though  substantive  office 
can  no  longer  be  bought,  and  the  nine  "  button  "- 


A.D.  1902-1917]      MANDARINS    GALORE  187 

ranks  no  longer  exist,  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that 
jobbery  is  more  in  evidence  than  competency. 

The  serio-comic  descriptions  of  office  juggling 
I  gave  in  the  first  editions  of  this  work  are  amply 
borne  out  by  the  scathing  denunciations  of  the 
"  three  good  viceroys,"  who,  after  the  "  Boxer  " 
war,  drew  up  a  thorough  scheme  of  reform ;  the 
men  who  saved  China  were  Liu  K'un-yih,  Chang 
Chi-tung,  and  Yuan  Shi-k'ai.  The  tentative  re- 
forms of  the  last-named  at  Tientsin  (1902-1907) 
really  provided  effective  models  for  the  whole  of 
China. 

Although  the  essence  of  provincial  government 
thus  consists  in  the  Men  and  the  four  (now  two) 
big  men  at  the  top  of  the  tree,  there  are  certain 
intermediaries  who,  in  spite  of  recent  drastic 
changes,  cannot  be  ignored.  Each  group  of  two 
or  more  Men  used  to  be  under  a/w,  or  city  of  the 
first  class,  and  each  province  had  from  five  to 
ten  fu.  I  will  not  confuse  the  reader"V/ith  too 
much  definition.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  a  fu 
city  had  no  real  existence  of  its  own,  butwas 
always  within  the  walls  of  one  or  more  of  its 
own  Men.  Thus  Lii-chou  Fu  in  An  Hwei, 
which  has  under  it  five  Men,  was  really  the  Lloh- 
fei  Men  city  where  Li  Hung-chang  was  born.  In 
a  few  cases,  as  for  instance  that  of  Kwang-chou 
Fu  (Canton  city),  there  were  and  are  two  head  Men 
within  one  set  of  walls ;  but  the  warrants  of  each 
are  limited  in  their  run  by  an  imaginary  dividing 
line  ; — much  to  the  comfort  of  local  thieves.  In 
one  case,  the  enormous  city  of  Su-chou  Fu 
(Soochow),  there  were  actually  three  head  Men, 
i.e.  three  prcetoria  or  yamens  ^  and  three  rulers, 
within  one  wall ;  but  of  course  only  the  triple 
head  of  the  one  body  was  there  :  the  Hinter- 
lands, or  territories  subject  to  each  one,  spread 
out  like  three  fans  in  different  directions.     It  is 

^  "  Yamm"  (standard-gate)  is  now  almost  abolished  in  favour 
of  hung-shu  or  "  public  office." 


188  THE   GOVERNMENT  [chap,  viii 

necessary  to  mention  this  in  1917,  because  nearly 
all  existing  maps,  despite  republican  changes, 
exhibit  cities  graded  under  the  now  extinct 
system. 

The  duties  of  afu  (usually  called  a  "  prefect  ") 
were  as  unsolid  and  abstract  as  his  territory. 
I  have  sat  and  talked  with  many  a  fu,  but  I 
never  understood  what  they  did  (beyond  re- 
hearing as  judges  in  the  second  instance),  except 
act  as  a  conduit-pipe  for  several  Men  ;  just  as 
the  archdeacon  has  been  humorously  defined 
as  an  ecclesiastical  dignitary  performing  archi- 
diaconal  functions,  so  was  the  fu  a  territorial 
dignitary  performing  prefectural  functions.  All 
routine  orders  from  above  came  to  the  Men 
through  the  fu,  and  conversely  with  the  routine 
reports.  The  "  head  "  fu  and  the  "  head  "  Men, 
when  in  one  city  with  the  highest  provincial  au- 
thorities, had  to  melden  gehorsamst,  or  "  report," 
every  morning.  In  a  few  cases  the  fu  had  some 
special  and  real  business,  custom,  salt,  mercan- 
tile, or  other,  confided  to  him  in  addition  to 
his  nebulous  supervisory  functions.  The  notori- 
ous reformer  K'ang  Yu-wei  pointed  out  to  the 
luckless  young  Emperor  in  1898  that  all  officials 
except  the  Men  were  useless  excrescences,  and 
ought  to  be  abolished.  No  wonder  the  "  profi- 
teers" of  the  day  hounded  the  man  from  Peking, — 
and  thus  indirectly  the  Emperor  from  his  throne, 
and  the  dynasty  from  its  "  tripod."  As  a  matter 
of  fact  the  Republic  has  totally  expunged  all  fu 
throughout  the  Dominion. 

Above  the  fu,  again,  there  was  a  still  more 
modern  and  still  more  indefinite  division  and 
official  called  the  tao,  who  had  not  even  the 
loan  of  a  walled  town  to  live  in ;  and  there  never 
was  such  a  place  as  even  a  theoretical  tao  city. 
Like  the/w,  he  was,  and  at  this  moment  perhaps 
still  is,  a  conduit ;  but  a  much  busier  man,  always 


A.D.  1917]  NEBULOUS    OFFICIALS  189 

provided  with  special  duties  ;  for  instance  at 
nearly  all  the  treaty-ports  the  tao  or  taotai  (with 
whom  a  consul  ranks  by  treaty)  manages  foreign 
affairs.  His  yamen  (now  kung-shu)  may  be  within 
the  walls  of  a  city  or  anywhere  else.  There  were 
several  grades  of  tao  :  there  was  the  simple  '*  cir- 
cuit intendant "  ;  then  there  was  the  "  intendant 
having  a  say  in  military  matters,"  the  "  customs 
intendant,"  and  so  on.  Besides  these  executive 
taOy  there  v/ere  also  others  in  charge  of  grain 
transport  and  salt  gabelle  ;  but  these  formed  no 
part  of  the  regular  administration.  However, 
the  Republic  began  by  abolishing  all  tao  (except 
those  required  under  foreign  treaty)  ;  then  it 
reintroduced  them  under  the  literary  name  of 
kwan-cW  ah ;  then  it  changed  the  name  to  tao-yin ; 
and  now,  as  I  write,  I  witness  the  extraordinary 
spectacle  of  a  tao-yin  officially  reporting  that 
he  (and  all  his  kind)  is  a  useless  humbug,  and 
ought  to  be  abolished  ;  under  these  circum- 
stances I  fail  to  see  what  honest  President  Li 
can  do  but  knock  the  hydra  on  the  head  once 
for  all.  I  do  not  touch  upon  the  assistant 
administrative  officials,  outdoor  and  indoor, 
attached  to  each  district.  Like  the  Japanese 
artist  who,  with  a  few  dashes  of  his  brush, 
leaves,  a  general  impression  of  landscape  to  be 
gathered  from  a  few  daubs,  so  do  I,  in  my  im- 
perfect way,  select  a  few  leading  features  in 
order  to  convey  to  non-specialist  readers  a 
picture  which  their  minds  may  rapidly  take  in 
without  undue  fatigue.  The  provincial  admini- 
stration system  of  China  is  still  in  a  state  of 
flux,  doubt,  and  restless,  not  to  say  meddlesome 
change,  and  it  would  be  unsafe  to  count  upon 
permanency  any  farther  than  as  above. 


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190 


CHAPTER    IX 

POPULATION 

In  ancient  times  the  population  of  China  must 
have  been  very  great,  for  even  2,000  years  ago 
it  was  stated  that  the  "  whole  of  the  nomads 
put  together  scarcely  number  as  many  as  the 
population    under    a    Chinese    township    area." 
Of   course    this    loose    way    of   illustrating    the 
chances  of  success  in  a  warlike  expedition  against 
the   Hiung-nu    must  not  be  taken  too    strictly. 
Other  positive  statements  scattered  about  the 
history  books  would    probably    between   them 
rectify  the  sentence  above  quoted  so  as  to  mean  : 
"  the  quarter  of  a  million  of  soldiers  which  the 
western  part  of  Siberia  and  High  Asia  can  raise 
against  us  would  not  exceed  the  adult  male  popu- 
lation of  one  of  our  provincial  county  divisions." 
The  fact,  moreover,  that  the  revenue  collected 
in  silk  stuffs  alone  amounted  at  times  to  5,000,000 
pieces,  and  apparently  in  one  year  ;• — collected, 
too,  from  the  north  only,   or  half  the  area  of 
modern  China,* — points  to  a  settled  population 
of    at    least    20,000,000.     The    Manchu    Annals 
for  1908  give  us  an  account  of  the  census  as  it 
has  existed  since  the  Chou  dynasty^ — the  mil- 
lennium before  our  era ;  and  Dr.  Lionel  Giles  of 
the  British  Museum  was  able  only  last  year  (1915) 
to  unearth  from  the  Stein  documents  precise 
details  of  how  the  census  was  worked  at  Tun- 
hwang  1,500   years  ago.     If  we  were  to  search 

191 


192  POPULATION  [chap,  ix 

diligently  all  the  early  histories,  we  might  find 
even   more   precise   indications,    such   as   those 
which  it  has  been  possible  for  historians  to  give 
during  our  "  Middle  Ages  "  ;    but  the  purpose  of 
this  book  will  be  sufficiently  served  if  we  dismiss 
from  consideration  the  whole  period  when  China 
was  divided   into  two  or  m^ore  rival  dynasties, 
largely  foreign,  and  begin  with  the  native  Sui 
rulers,  who  had  in  a.d.  600  completely  unified 
the  empire.     A  few  years  after  this  date  (609) 
the   population   is   specifically    stated   to   have 
numbered  8,700,000  households,   in   1,255  Men 
districts.     In    652,    after    the    fearful    wars    of 
succession  and  the  destructive  expeditions  against 
Turks,  Cor  cans,  etc.,  the  number  of  households 
had  gone  down  to  3,800,000.     In  654  a  biennial 
census  was  ordained.     The  conquest  of  South- 
west Corea  in  660  brought  760,000  households 
with  it.     Probably  the  third  or  South-eastern 
Corean  peninsular  state  contained  as  many.     By 
the  conquest  of  North  Corea  in  668  China  gained 
170    Men    districts    containing    697,000    house- 
holds ;    and  these  figures,  compared  with  those 
for   609,   give  us   a  fair  relative  idea   of  each 
country's  population.      Then  followed  a  period 
of  recuperation,  and  the  following  official  figures 
enable    us    to    fix    approximately    the    average 
number  of  "  mouths  "  in  a  household  :• — 


Tear. 

Households. 

Mouths. 

733          ..         . 
765         ..         . 

7,861,236 
9,619,254 

46,431,263 
52,880,488 

Another  piece  of  information  makes  it  plain 
that  not  more  than  one  person  in  each  house- 
hold could  have  been  taxed,  that  some  house- 
holds were  not  taxed  at  all,  and  that  only 
one-seventh  part  of  the  persons  not  ranked  as 


A.D.  750-900]  VICISSITUDES  IN  POPULATION  193 

householders  paid  taxes  ;  for,  out  of  the  above 
figures    for    755,    only    5,301,044    householders 
and  7,662,800  non-householders  paid  scot.     Dr. 
Lionel  Giles  adduces  statistics  gathered  from  the 
5,000-volunie   encyclopaedia   showing   how    this 
ratio  was  computed  at  various  dates. — But,  to 
continue  our  own  estimates,  in  807,  after  bloody 
wars  with  the  Shans  and  Tibetans,  1,453  Men 
only  contained  2,440,254  households,  and  even 
of  this  number  but  1,440,000  in  eight  provinces 
(tao)   had   been   counted ;     the  rest   for   fifteen 
other    provinces    had    been    merely    estimated. 
There  can  be  no  mistake  about  these   figures, 
for  it  is  added,  "  and  out  of  this  reduced  popu- 
lation, only  one  quarter  that  of  the  reign  period 
742-756,   we  have   830,000   paid   troops  !  "     In 
the  years  820  and  821  the  number  of  "  house- 
holds   and     tents "    is    twice    given    as    below 
2,400,000,  and  the  number  of  mouths  as  below 
16,000,000  ;   but  in  one  of  the  two  cases  it  is 
stated  "  this  excludes  (modern)  Sz  Ch'wan,  Kwei 
Chou,    the    Two    Kwang,    and     Annam    (then 
Chinese)  "  ;    and  in  the  other,   "  this  excludes 
military  provinces."     Finally  (apparently  after 
reconquests),  we  are  told  a  few  years  later  that 
"  out  of  3,350,000  households  we  are  employing 
990,000    soldiers ;     out    of   a    total    revenue    of 
35,000,000  (?  silver  ounces  or  taels),   one  third 
goes  to  the  Emperor,  and  two-thirds  are  local." 
During  the  Turkish  interregnums,  or  the  Five 
Dynasty  Period  (907-60),  which  came  between 
the  fall  of  the  T'ang  and  rise  of  the  Sung  dynasty, 
when  China  was  really  split  up  into  a  dozen 
petty  states,  there  are  naturally  no  records  of 
population  worth  noticing.     But   I   have   come 
across  the  following  during  the  eleventh  century, 
when  China,   though  unified,   nevertheless  was 
on  the  Great  Wall  line  still  under  Tartar  rule 
(pp.  33-4  and  128-133) :— 


194 


POPULATION 


[chap.  IX 


Tear. 

Households. 

Mouths. 

1014 
1088 
1097 

9,055,729 
18,289,385 
19,435,570 

21,976,965 
32,163,017 
33,401,606 

The  two  last  years,  however,  subdivide  the 
householders  into  two  classes,  and  use  the 
word  "adult  man"  (ting)  instead  of  the  word 
*■'  mouth."  A  close,  special  study  is  necessary 
to  discover  exactly  what  this  means,  and  Dr. 
Lionel  Giles  has  made  some  points  here  too.  I 
was  inclined  to  think  "  mouth "  here  meant 
"  man  or  woman,  but  not  child,"  and  ting  meant 
"  male  capable  of  doing  corvee  or  bearing  arms." 
The  figures  for  1088  and  1097  are  thus  sub- 
divided I — 


QualificatioQ. 

Householders. 

Adults. 

Superior . 
Guest 

12,134,733 
6,154,652 

28,533,934 
3,629,083 

Lord 
Guest 

13,068,741 
6,366,829 

30,344,274 
3,067,332 

The  probable  meaning  of  this  is  that  most 
Chinese  freeman  units  furnished  at  least  a 
father  and  one  (or  two)  sons  out  of  each  house- 
hold ;  but  that  villeins,  or  "  copyholders  "  with 
precarious  tenancy,  only  furnished  occasional 
men  for  the  wars' — never  more  than  one  for  each 
two  villein  households^ — and  were  practically 
serfs.  This  supposition  is  strengthened  by  the 
fact  that  the  T'ang  dynasty  (600-900)  is  known 
to  have  emancipated  large  numbers  of  Govern- 
ment adscriptitii,  who  had,  during  centuries  of 
war,  sought  protection  under  great  lords  ;  but 
private  families  continued  to  keep  them,  and 
the  T'ang  Government  ceased  to  emancipate 
privately-owned    serfs    against    their    masters' 


A.D.  900-1200]        HAZY    STATISTICS  195 

will.  It  was,  however,  the  policy  of  the  Sung 
dynasty  (900-1200)  to  reduce  the  number  of 
slaves  in  the  households  of  the  rich.  It  must 
also  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  Kitans  ruled  over 
parts  of  modern  Chih  Li  and  Shan  Si,  and  that 
the  Sung  dynasty  positively  declined  from  the 
beginning  to  have  any  political  truck  with 
either  Yiin  Nan  or  Annam. 

The  Niichens  (earlier  Manchus)  turned  out 
the  Kitans  from  North  China,  and,  besides 
governing  all  their  territory  between  Corea  and 
the  desert,  pushed  their  way  into  real  China 
much  farther  than  the  Kitans  had  done.  ,  In 
fact,  the  whole  of  "  Old  China  "  was  in  their 
hands' — that  is,  the  whole  valley  or  valleys  of 
the  Yellow  River  enclosed  between  longitude 
108°  E.  and  latitude  33°  N.  Their  official 
figures  for  three  years  are  :< — 


Tear. 

Households. 

Mouths. 

1183      . 

1190      . 
1195      . 

615,624 
6,939,000 
7,223,400 

6,158,636 
45,447,900 
48,490,000 

The  figures  for  1183  only  include  the  military 
organisation  under  the  Tartar  tningans  or  chili- 
archs,  and  may  perhaps  also  serve  to  show 
what  the  Kitan  "  banner "  population  had 
been  :  one  quarter  of  the  mouths  were  slaves. 
It  is  stated  that  the  equivalent  of  26,000,000 
English  acres  were  cultivated,  i.e.  between  four 
and  five  acres  for  each  "  mouth."  The  last- 
recorded  number  of  (modern)  Manchu  house- 
holds was  in  1734,  when  there  were  26,500,000 
for  all  China,  cultivating  about  150,000,000 
acres  ;  so  that  the  proportion  in  1183  is  rela- 
tively quite  different,  unless  the  word  "  mouth  " 
is  irregularly  used.  If  we  deduct  the  mingan 
population  from  the  figures  of  1190-5,  we 
15 


196  POPULATION  [chap,  ix 

get  about  6,500,000  householders,  consisting  of 
40,000,000  mouths,  taken  by  the  Tartars  from 
the  native  Chinese  Sung  Empire.  We  have 
seen  what  the  Sung  population  was  a  century 
earlier.  If  it  had  not  increased,  there  would 
still  have  been  13,000,000  householders  left  in 
the  southern  empire,  and  probably  (in  view  of 
incessant  warring)  this  figure  really  does  approxi- 
mately represent  the  number  for  South  China,  as 
to  which,  however,  there  are  no  statistics  at 
present  available  to  me. 

The  Niichens  were  in  turn  driven  out  by  the 
Mongols,  whose  first  census  in  1235  showed 
873,781  households,  with  a  total  of  4,754,975 
mouths.  Over  200,000  households  were  added 
to  the  next  census  in  1252.  From  1261  to  1274 
there  is  steady  progression,  year  by  year,  from 
1,418,490  to  1,967,896  households;  but  of 
course  these  totals  only  include  "  Old  China," 
two -thirds  of  whose  population  had  either 
emigrated  or  been  destroyed.  In  1275  the 
number  of  households  is  given  at  4,764,077,  but 
it  is  not  clear  what  conquered  parts  this  total 
includes.  The  later  conquests  of  1275-6  are 
carefully  recorded,  together  with  the  number 
of  households  and  mouths  obtained  by  official 
inquiries  in  each  province.  These  conquests 
practically  amount  to  the  same  thing  as  the 
additions  to  "  Old  China  "  made  or  consolidated 
by  the  conquering  Han  dynasty  1,400  years 
earlier,  and  include  Hu  Peh,  Hu  Nan,  Kiang  Si, 
Cheh  Kiang,  and  Kiang  Su,  with  a  grand  total 
of  7,288,331  households  of  14,653,820  mouths, 
i.e.  if  we  add  up  each  specified  minor  total.  But 
if  we  lump  specified  with  unspecified  totals,  as 
the  Mongol  historian  does,  we  obtain,  as  he 
gives  us,  9,370,472  households  of  19,721,015 
mouths,  settled  in  773  conquered  Men  districts. 
This   agrees   roughly   with   a  casual   statement 


A.D.  1200-1300]  HOUSEHOLDS   AND   MOUTHS  197 

made  in  another  chapter  :  "  In  that  year  (1276) 
we  obtained  ten  niilhon  households  from  the 
obhterated  Sung  house."  This  Sung  dynasty 
is  none  other  than  Marco  Polo's  Manji,  or  Manzi, 
this  word  being,  as  already  explained  in  part 
(p.  157),  the  modern  Chinese  man-tsz  or  "  southern 
ruffians,"  just  as  the  Mongols  are  ta-tsz,  or  sao- 
ta-tsz,  "  frowsy  Tartars  "  (p.  35).  Marco  Polo  says 
there  were  1,200  towns  in  all  Manji,  and  1,600,000 
houses  in  Kinsai  alone  (Hangchow).  As  Hang- 
chow  was  only  the  capital  of  one  of  the  "  Two 
Cheh,"  the  conquest  of  which  brought  in 
2,983,672  households,  the  1,600,000  appHed  to 
the  "West  Cheh  [Kiang] "  alone  would  be  a  fair 
proportion  :  "  East  Cheh  [Kiang]"  then  included 
Shanghai  and  the  coast  parts  down  to  Wenchow. 
The  Sung  history  says  that  in  1264  that 
dynasty  still  possessed  5,696,989  households  of 
13,206,532  mouths,  and  that  in  1276  the  Emperor 
formally  "  handed  them  over  "  to  General 
Bay  en.  In  1278  the  conquest  of  Chang-chou 
(Zaitun,  p.  74)  and  the  surrounding  parts  brought 
in  about  another  million  households.  An  idea 
of  the  fearful  slaughters  which  took  place  in 
those  times  may  be  gained  from  the  statement 
in  1282  that  Sz  Ch'wan  was  found  to  contain 
only  about  120,000  households.  This  is  accen- 
tuated in  1285,  when  we  are  told  that  "  Sz 
Ch'wan  and  the  Kwang  Tung  coast  districts 
are  but  sparsely  populated."  In  1293  the  num- 
ber of  households  is  put  down  at  10,402,760, 
without  any  further  explanation  :  possibly  the 
disastrous  wars  against  Japan,  Annani,  and 
Java  may  have  stopped  further  increase.  In 
1294  the  conquests  and  annexations  on  the 
Burmo-Tibetan  frontier  added  900,000  house- 
holds to  this  figure.  In  Kublai's  time  5,000,000 
cwt.  of  rice  used  to  be  annually  sent  to  Peking. 
On  the  whole  it  seems   that  during  the   1,500 


198  POPULATION  [chap,  ix 

years'  interval  between  the  "  First  Empire " 
and  that  of  Kublai,  in  spite  of  ups  and  downs, 
the  population  had  remained  stationary  :  it 
began  and  ended  with  about  50,000,000  souls. 

In  1391  the  purely  Chinese  Ming  dynasty, 
which  for  the  first  time  in  600  years  lield  the 
Eighteen  Provinces  under  one  sway,  free  except 
for  incursions  on  the  Great  Wall  line  from 
Tartar  complications,  counted  its  population  at 
10,684,435  households,  of  56,774,561  adults. 
In  1393  there  were  16,052,860  households  of 
60,545,812  mouths.  The  increase  of  mouths 
over  adults  is  not  hard  to  account  for ;  but, 
unless  we  assume  a  new  or  the  recrudescence  of 
an  old  habit  of  living  apart  from  the  paternal 
roof,  it  is  difficult  to  explain  the  sudden  upward 
movement  of  households.  This  year  the  equiva- 
lents of  140,000,000  acres  were  cultivated,  and 
it  is  distinctly  stated  that  "  most  of  the  land 
in  the  empire  is  now  under  tillage."  In  1491 
the  population  went  down  to  9,113,446  house- 
holds of  53,281,158  mouths;  and  in  1578  it 
figured  at  10,621,436  households  of  60,692,856 
mouths.  The  explanation  is  given  that  (appar- 
ently in  order  to  escape  excessive  taxation)  "  a 
habit  had  grown  up  of  seeking  the  protection 
of  rich  persons,  of  living  in  boats,  and  of  pre- 
tending to  be  workmen  or  traders." 

The  Manchu  Government,  which  issued  (in- 
complete) revenue  returns  from  the  very  first  year 
of  its  existence  (1644),  was  not  ready  at  all  until 
1651  with  its  population  and  land-tax  statistics. 
At  the  end  of  that  year  there  were  10,633,326 
households.  We  may  assume  that  the  conquest 
of  the  Eighteen  Provinces  was  practically  com- 
plete in  1657,  up  to  which  date  the  number  of 
householders  had  increased  by  one  or  two 
million  each  year,  until  they  reached  over 
18,500,000.    Various  wars  and  disasters  kept  the 


A.D.  1708-1735]      "FREE    RESOURCES"  199 

figures  steady  up  to  1708,  when  for  the  first 
time  an  excess  over  21,000,000  was  recorded. 
The  financial  condition  of  China  was  then  so 
prosperous  that  the  Emperor,  in  the  fulness  of 
his  heart,  took  to  renutting  the  whole  land-tax 
from  time  to  time,  each  province  taking  its 
benefit  in  turn.  The  total  cultivation  had 
reached  abOut  110,000,000  acres  ^  ;  that  is,  count- 
ing bad  and  good  land  together,  land-tax  upon 
the  total  area  (possibly  150,000,000  or  200,000,000 
acres)  upon  which  it  was  due  from  24,600,000 
householders,  was  gathered  in  calculated  at 
the  rate  of  so  much  an  acre  of  good  land. 
The  Emperor  determined  that  the  sum  thus 
derived  (not  quite  30,000,000  taels,  or  ounces 
of  silver)  was  a  sufficient  charge  upon  the  land  ; 
arguing  that,  no  matter  how  the  population 
might  increase  in  the  future,  the  same  land,  now 
for  most  practical  purposes  all  of  it  cultivated, 
would  in  the  same  future  have  to  feed  two, 
three,  or  even  ten  persons,  instead  of  the  one 
as  now  ;  which  meant  that  the  struggle  for  life 
would  be  greater,  and  each  individual's  power 
to  pay  taxes  would  therefore  proportionably 
decrease.  Accordingly,  from  the  year  1713  the 
returns  of  "  adults  and  mouths  "  was  accom- 
panied by  a  subsidiary  return  of  "  free  ones." 
By  1734,  the  last  year  for  which  returns  are 
published  under  this  system,  the  "  free  ones  " 
had  increased  to  937,530,  whilst  the  other  two 
categories  remained  pretty  much  as  they  were 
in  1712. 

The  words  "  adults  and  mouths  "  so  vaguely 
used  together  now,  as  they  were  used  separately 
under  previous  dynasties,  must  have  meant  in 
combination  "  tax-paying  households  "  ;  for,  on 
his  accession  in  1735,  the  practical  Emperor 
K'ien-lung  set  about  devising  a  more  intelligent 

1  English. 


200  POPULATION  [chap,  ix 

system.  He  said  :  "  What  is  the  good  of 
recording  taxable  units  which  never  increase, 
and  free  units  which  pay  no  revenue  ?  I  want 
to  know  how  many  human  beings  there  are." 
Consequently  from  1741  to  1851  we  have  year 
by  year  a  steadily  mounting  return  of  souls, 
beginning  with  143,411,559,  and  ending  with 
the  maximum  of  432,164,047.  If  attention  be 
paid  to  the  methods  by  which  I  have  en- 
deavoured to  extract  principles  and  conclusions 
from  the  above  defective  evidence,  it  will  be 
seen  that  the  population  of  China  cannot  at 
any  time  have  much  exceeded  100,000,000  souls 
until  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
By  the  year  1762  it  had  overtopped  200,000,000  ; 
and  so  on,  doubling  itself  every  century  ;  so 
that  we  are  probably  right  in  concluding  that 
it  only  reached  50,000,000  in  1644  when  the 
Manchus  took  over  the  power  ;  that  is,  it  much 
more  than  doubled  itself  during  the  century 
1650—1750,  despite  all  wars  and  tribulations. 

During  the  first  years  of  the  great  Taiping 
rebellion  (1856-60),  the  registered  population 
declined  by  two-fifths ;  but,  though  many 
millions  must  have  perished,  it  is  not  at  all 
likely  that  the  numbers  of  1851  were  more  than 
literally  decimated.^  Even  then,  to  kill  or 
starve  43,000,000  people  in  ten  years,  would 
mean  12,000  a  day,  in  addition  to  the  40,000  a 

^  In  a  pamphlet  entitled  Population  and  Revenue  of  China, 
reprinted  from  Otia  Mersiana,  1899  ;  and  in  a  paper  published 
in  the  Royal  Statistical  Society's  Journal  for  March  in  that  same 
year,  I  gave  further  specific  evidence  bearing  upon  statistics, 
and  also  discussed  the  question  how  far  the  Taiping  rebellion 
of  fifty  years  ago  affected  the  population.  I  need  not  repeat 
all  the  arguments  here.  The  same  pamphlet  gives  statistics 
from  Russian  sources  (Sacharoff)  showing  what  the  population 
of  each  province  was  in  1894.  But  these  statistics,  which  I 
first  critically  examined  by  the  light  of  famines  and  other 
disasters,  were  in  their  turn  all  obtained  from  the  Chinese  official 
tables.  I  notice  that  Dr.  Lionel  Giles  has  recourse  to  Sacharoff 
too. 


A.D.  1842-1904]  CHINESE    OFFICIAL    TABLES  201 

day  who  (at  the  rate  of  30  per  thousand  per 
annum)  would  die  naturally,  and  would  balance 
about  the  same  number  of  births.     Moreover, 
the  rebellion  only  covered  one-half  of  the  total 
area  of  China,  so  that  24,000  a  day  is  certainly 
more  likely  than  12,000  :    in  other  words  the 
death-rate  was  nearly  doubled ;  and  in  any  case, 
from   first  to  last,   there   never   has   been   any 
direct  evidence  as  to  what  the  population  of 
China  is  or  has  been  except  the  Chinese  official 
statements.     I    have    now    shown    that    these 
hang  fairly  well  together,  in  spite  of  all  defects 
both    in    quality    and    in    quantity.     We    may 
accept  them  or  reject  them  ;   but  it  is  unreason- 
able to  accept  only  so  much  as  may  fit  in  with 
our   own  preconceived    notions,   and   reject  all 
the  rest.     The  mere  opinions  of  Europeans  are 
therefore  worthless,  so  far  as  they  conflict  with 
specific  evidence.     The  United  States  Minister 
to  China,  Mr.  W.  W.  Rockhill,  in  1905  and  1911 
published    his    calculations,    based    on    official 
Chinese   estimates,   the   originals   of  which,   for 
1910, 1  possess ;  and  many  other  less  distinguished 
foreigners    have    aired   their   views ;     but,    just 
before  the  fall  of  the  Empire,  the  Canton  viceroy 
frankly  informed  the  Emperor  that,   so  far  as 
his  province  was  concerned,  the  census  was  a 
hollow  sham — as  probably  with  all  the  provinces. 
I  give  here  a  table  in  two  columns  showing  the 
population  of  each  province  in  1842  and  1894 — 
that  is,  before  the  Taiping  rebellion,  and  since 
China    has    recuperated    her   forces.     For    con- 
venience' sake  I  ignore  fractions  over  or  under 
100,000  as  being  unessential  to  the  main  ques- 
tion.    It  is  notorious  that  Cheh  Kiang,  Ho  Nan, 
Kiang  Su,  and  Kiang  Si  suffered  most  by  the 
Taiping  revolution,  so  that  we  need  not  marvel 
at  their  comparative  backwardness.      Shan   Si 
was  reduced  by  a  terrible  famine  in  1877-8.    Kan 


202 


POPULATION 


[chap.  IX 


Suh  and  part  of  Shen  Si  were  ruined  by  the 
Mahometan  rebelhon  of  1860-75.  Sz  Ch'wan 
calls  for  special  remark  :  we  have  seen  that  in 
Kublai  Khan's  time  it  had  already  been  once 
depopulated,  whereas  all  visitors  to  the  cele- 
brated Ch'eng-tu  plain  certify  to  its  being  at 
the  present  moment  one  of  the  richest  and  most 
populous  spots  in  China,  and  this  plain  alone 
(the  only  large  plain  in  the  province)  must 
cover  an  area  of  3,000  square  miles. 


Name  of  Province. 

1842. 

1894. 

An  Hwei    ..... 

36,600,000 

-  35,800,000 

Chgh  Kiang 

30,400,000 

11,800,000 

Chih  Li       . 

36,900,000 

29,400,000 

Fuh  Kien  . 

25,800,000 

25,200,000 

Ho  Nan      . 

29,100,000 

21,000,000 

Hu  Nan     . 

20,000,000 

22,000,000 

Hu  Peh      . 

28,600,000 

34,300,000 

Kan  Suh    . 

19,500,000 

9,800,000 

Eaang  Si     . 

26,500,000 

22,000,000 

Kiang  Su  . 

39,600,000 

24,600,000 

Kwang  Si  . 

8,100,000 

8,600,000 

Kwang  Tung 

21,100,000 

29,900,000 

Kwei  Chou 

5,700,000 

4,800,000 

Shan  Si 

17,100,000 

11,100,000 

Shan  Tung. 

36,200,000 

37,400,000 

Shen  Si 

10,300,000 

8,400,000 

Sz  Ch'wan. 

22,300,000 

79,500,000 

Yiin  Nan  . 

5,800,000 

6,200,000 

Rough  totals 

419,600,000 

421,800,000 

During  the  rebellions  which  ushered  in  the 
Manchus  250  years  ago,  the  depopulation  was 
again  so  complete  as  to  be  nearly  absolute. 
When  wandering  over  the  province  for  thousands 
of  miles  in  1881,  I  came  across  innumerable 
"  traditional  proofs  "  of  this  fact.  Every  vil- 
lager in  the  province  speaks  of  it  as  we  in 
England  speak  of  the  Great  Plague  of  1665 
(except  that  his  historical  memory  is  the  better 
trained).  Another  specific  proof  is  that  when, 
in  1712,  the  land-tax  was  made  unchangeable 
for  ever,  Sz  Ch'wan  had  (with  the  exception  of 


A.D.  1712-1912]  SZ   CH'WAN'S    SPECIAL   CASE  203 

the  four  half- foreign  and  pauper  provinces, 
Kan  Suh,  Yiin  Nan,  KAvei  Chou,  and  Kwang 
Si)  the  lowest  land-tax  of  all- — under  700,000 
tacls,  against  an  average  of  1,700,000  for  the 
other  provinces.  At  the  rate  of  proportionate 
taxation  per  household,  this  would  give  700,000 
households,  or  about  4,000,000  souls,  instead  of 
the  80,000,000  now  supposed  to  be  there. 

Apart    from    the    fact    that    Sz    Ch'wan    has 
enjoyed  comparative  peace  for  two  centuries, 
there  was  an  enormous  immigration  at  the  time 
of  the  Taiping  rebellion,  and  from  all  sides ;   so 
that  probably  some  of  the  losses  in  the  registered 
population  of  other  provinces  reappear  amongst 
the  gain  in  the  officially  registered  population  of 
Sz  Ch'wan.     I  found,  when  there,  that  a  stream 
of  immigrants  from  Hu  Kwang  {i.e.  Hu  Nan 
and  Hu  Peh)  and  Kiang  Si  had  long  been  and 
still  was  steadily  pouring  in  :    I  came  across  but 
one  village  where  the  original  population  had 
remained   unchanged.     As   neither  Hu   Kwang 
nor  Kiang  Si  has  apparently  suffered  any  great 
drain   of  population,   it   seems  likely  that  the 
desolated  provinces  still  farther  east  have  during 
troublous  times  sent  streams  of  refugees  into 
them,  which  streams  have  either  remained  there, 
or    have    themselves    moved    through,    or    have 
pushed  on  before  them  the  original  population. 
Still,    all    allowances    made,    it    is    exceedingly 
difficult  to  believe  that  there  are  now  80,000,000 
people  in  a  mountainous  province,  the  western, 
north-western,  and  south-western  parts  of  which 
are   still   but   very   thinly   populated   by   semi- 
independent    tribes.     Yet    there    is    other    and 
indirect  evidence  in  favour  of  some  really  great 
increase   in   population.     Whilst   in   other  pro- 
vinces no  attempt  has  ever  been  made  to  sur- 
charge   the    land-tax    (except    in    the    way    of 
ordinary  peculation),   in  Sz  Ch'wan   for  many 


204  POPULATION  [chap,  ix 

years  past  one  "  fine  "  and  one  *'  benevolence  " 
have  been  annually  levied  on  owners  in  proportion 
to  their  land-tax:  in  other  words,  the  official 
land-tax  in  imperial  times  was,  and  probably  still 
is  quadrupled ;  for  these  two  items,  levied  only 
on  the  richer  districts,  amount  to  considerably 
over  3,000,000  taels  a  year.  There  is  yet  an- 
other indirect  piece  of  evidence.  Sz  Ch'wan  is 
notorious  for  the  fewness  of  its  civilian  officials 
(all  of  whom,  under  the  universal  rule  up  to  1912, 
had  to  serve  in  other  provinces) :  in  other  words,  it 
was  the  one  province  in  the  Empire  where  it  paid 
w  ell:to-do  persons  better  to  stay  at  home  than  to 
"  trade  "  abroad  as  mandarins ;  and  that  trade,  as 
we  all  know,  is  still  one  of  the  most  lucrative  in 
China,  and  the  one  patronised  by  the  most  highly- 
educated  persons,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  great 
opium  smuggling  "  operation  "  carried  out  in  1916 
by  members  of  Parliament  and  a  cabinet  minister. 
As  a  further  illustration,  by  exception  to  what  I 
state  as  the  rule,  I  may  take  the  case  20  years  ago 
of  the  General  Pao  Ch'ao,  one  of  the  very  rare 
instances  of  a  Sz  Ch'wan  military  mandarin  of 
capacity.  After  all  his  brave  services,  it  was 
found  onhisdeaththathe  had  beengrosslycorrupt, 
and  had  made  his  fortune  in  a  most  dishonourable 
way.  However,  the  Viceroy  Liu  Ping-chang  (him- 
self a  corrupt  scoundrel,  whose  disgrace  was  sub- 
sequently insisted  on  by  Great  Britain)  m.anaged 
to  arrange  things  so  that  the  Emperor  did  not 
compel  General  Pao's  heirs  to  disgorge. 

It  has  been  the  practice  during  very  recent 
years  for  British  and  other  foreign  officials 
reporting  on  Sz  Ch'wan  trade  to  reduce  this 
80,000,000  to  45  or  50-60  millions — apparently 
'inero  niotu,  because  the  total  is  so  staggering; 
there  is,  however,  no  trustworthy  evidence  one 
way  or  the  other,  and  we  may  as  well  follow  the 
Board. 


1,0 


DOC 


^e. 


P0| 
,800,1 
REV 
l786,0C 


I  PORT 
)00,di 


00( 


that  the  census  was 

,p.     As  to  provincial 

Mrefore,  we  allow  the 
rei 

ol 


MAP  ILLUSTRATING 
POPULATION  IN  1894 
AND  REVENUE  1898 


leso  vicsrovB  admitted  just  betoro  the  laU  of  the  dynaety  m  1912  that  the  ceneM  w.9 
iv  •  in  any  cose  it  differed  Uttle  from  the  e.timete  in  1  he  above  map  As  to  P;»"""»l 
sy  have  been  in  utter  conlu.ion  since  lill2  :  m  this  new  Edition,  therefore,  we  allow  the 
stand  for  what  it  may  be  worth. 


c 


CHAPTER    X 

REVENUE 

In  an  outline  work  like  this  it  would  be  un- 
profitable to  enter  retrospectively  into  the  whole 
history  of  Chinese  finance.  In  the  chapter  on 
"  Early  Trade  Notions  "  I  have  made  a  few 
remarks  bearing  upon  the  subject  of  very  early 
trade  and  taxes.  The  chief  authority  for  these 
observations  is  the  first  standard  history,  by  Sz- 
ma  Ts'ien,  Avho  devotes  a  special  chapter  to  the 
Budget ;  and  all  subsequent  dynastic  histories 
have,  in  imitation  or  continuation  of  this  arrange- 
ment, consecrated  one  or  inore  volumes  to 
"  Eatables  and  Goods,"  which  expression  practic- 
ally means  "  Finance  and  Trade "  ;  for  the 
radical  idea  at  the  bottom  of  Chinese  financial 
methods  is  "  feeding  the  people,  and  feeding  on 
the  people  "  :  in  accordance  with  this  notion  all 
salaries  were  once  calculated  in  hundredweights 
of  rice.  Just  as  Anglo-Indians  now  say  "  he  is  a 
6,000-rupee  man"  (a  month),  so  did  the  Chinese 
once  say  "  he  is  a  2,000-cwt.  man"  (a  year). 

The  root  of  all  legitimate  taxation  has  always 
been  a  tithe  or  proportion,  in  money,  kind,  or 
both,  of  the  land's  cultivated  produce.  The  Salt 
Gabelle  (formerly  associated  with  iron  licences) 
has,  dynasty  by  dynasty,  taken  but  a  second 
place  in  importance.  Inland  and  Foreign  Cus- 
toms always  held  a  subordinate  and  irregular 
position  until  our  own  days,  being  viewed  rather 
in  the  light  of  the  Emperor's  personal  fiscus, 

206 


206  REVENUE  [chap,  x 

for  the  Court  and  favourites,  than  of  the  State's 
exchequer  ;  and  in  any  case  they  are  apparently 
not  more  than  1,200  years  old,  even  in  their 
infant  stage  (pp.  52,  55).  How  the  different 
dynasties  rang  the  changes,  sometimes  caprici- 
ously, upon  these  three  main  items  of  revenue 
is  a  matter  of  antiquarian  rather  than  of  practical 
interest  :   the  cash  was  got  in. 

We  must  do  the  best  a  short  span  of  life 
enables  us  to  do,  and  endeavour  to  get  a  good 
hold  of  the  outlines  or  principles  of  Chinese 
history  before  we  devote  our  best  energies  to  the 
elaboration  of  special  details.  With  these  re- 
serves, therefore,  I  refer  to  what  I  have  already 
said  in  earlier  chapters,  and  dismiss  the  whole 
subject  of  practical  finance  previous  to  the 
Manchu  dynasty,  confining  myself  to  a  glance  at 
matters  as  we  find  them,  say,  between  1715  and 
1915.  Up  to  1734  the  Board  of  Revenue's  annual 
budget  consisted,  on  the  debit  side,  of  a  state- 
ment accounting  for  receipts  of  :> — 

1.  Land-tax  in  ounces  of  silver. 

2.  Grain-tax  in  hundredweights  of  cereals. 

3.  Straw,  grass,  etc.,  in  bundles. 

4.  Salt  produced  in  "  drafts  "  (quarters)  for 
retailing. 

5.  Salt  dues  on  above  in  taels  (^  tael  per 
draft). 

6.  Tea  in  "  drafts  "  (quarters),  apparently  for 
export. 

7.  Cop23er cashcoined  fromGovernmentcopper. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  dynasty  the  total 
revenue  receipts  in  money  or  bullion  were  under 
15,000,000  taels,  and  in  1656  under  20,000,000. 
At  the  same  time,  the  Emperor  has  left  it  on 
record  that  he  was  well  aware  enormous  fortunes 
were  made  out  of  the  provinces  by  his  conquering 
generals.     In  spite  of  expensive  wars,  remissions 


A.D,  1740-1790]     REVENUE    RECEIPTS 


207 


of  taxes,  and  imperial  visits  or  costly  tours  of 
inspection,  the  average  expenditure  was  so  much 
below  average  receipts  that  for  over  half  a 
century  (1740-90)  there  was  a  balance  of 
60,000,000  or  70,000,000  taels  always  in  hand. 
It  must  also  be  remembered  that  the  inter- 
national gold  value  of  the  silver  tael  was  then 
nearer  eight  shillings  than  the  present  average  of 
three  shillings,  and  its  local  purchasing  power  was 
also  much  greater  than  at  present.  If  we  regard 
one  tael  as  equivalent  in  local  power  to  one  pound 
with  ourselves,  we  shall  not  be  far  wrong.  During 
this  halcyon  period,  the  eighteenth  century,  the 
regular  receipts  may  be  roughly  put  down  at 
40,000,000,  and  the  regular  expenditure  at 
30,000,000  taels  ;  the  accumulated  balance  was 
only  occasionally  drawn  upon  when  the  annual 
surpluses  were  unequal  to  special  demands  ;  but 
these  annual  surpluses  usually  covered  the  ex- 
ceptional expenses,  just  as  the  "  free  resources  " 
of  Russia  under  M.  de  Witte  were  always  at 
hand  (in  theory  at  least)  to  defray  unlooked-for 
charges.  But  every  now  and  then,  under  special 
stress,  the  sale  of  titles  or  office  was  temporarily 
resorted  to,  in  order  to  ease  the  money  market. 
The  following  is  a  specimen  of  a  genuine  pre- 
Taiping  budget  in  taels  :- — 


Receipts 

Reformed  land-tax            .... 

29,410,000 

Profits  on  salt          ..... 

5,745,000 

Customs  [very  little  foreign]    . 

5,415,000 

Sale  of  office            ..... 

3,000,000 

Tea,  fish,  rushes,  mining 

322,000 

Transfer  fees  ...... 

190,000 

Octroi  and  miscellaneous 

858,000 

44,940,000 

Less  sale  of  office  (exceptional) 

3,000,000 

Total  ordinary  cash  receipts  (taels)     . 

41,940,000 

Hundredweights   of   grain   received  (value 

from  Tl.  1  to  Tls.  2)   . 

4,841,000 

Total  receipts    .... 

46,781,000 

208  REVENUE  [chap,  x 

All  the  above  revenue  seems  to  have  gone 
either  actually  to  Peking,  or  (indirectly  thither) 
as  pay  to  the  central  and  provincial  armies  ;  or 
to  officials  ;  or  to  services  connected  with  Peking 
and  its  armies,  such  as  posts,  grain-boats,  or 
mints  ;  or  to  administrations  of  other  matters 
associated  with  the  Peking  interests,  such  as 
repairs  to  the  Canal,  to  the  Peking  rivers,  the 
Hwai  dykes,  or  the  Yellow  River. 

Now  let  us  take  the  corresponding  credit  side. 
Out  of  a  total  expenditure  of  31,000,000  taels, 
only  one  two-hundredth  part  goes  in  any  way 
directly  to  the  public,  and  even  this  trivial  sum 
of  140,000  taels  for  "  educational  establish- 
ments "  probably  refers  to  Peking  official  colleges, 
or  Manchu  schools. 

The  following  is  a  condensed  specimen,  then, 
of  a  genuine  pre-Taiping  expenditure  sheet  : — 


Army  and  army  interests 

Salaries,  allowances 

Yellow  River 

Posts  and  boats 

Palaces,  princes,  eunuchs,  etc. 


19,599,100 
4,554,700 
3,800,000 
2,120,000 
1,309,000 


31,382,800 
Education 140,000 


Taels  31,522,800 

As  the  number  of  soldiers  included  in  the  above 
pay  total  is  800,000,  I  presume  that  the  100,000 
or  so  of  bannermen  at  Peking  would  absorb  be- 
tween 2,000,000  and  3,000,000  taels,  whilst  the 
100,000  bannermen  in  the  provinces,  plus  the 
600,000  Chinese  provincial  troops,  would  require 
from  16,000,000  to  17,000,000  taels. 

The  working  revenue  or  expenditure  of  the 
provinces,  which  of  course  was  never  reported 
in  detail,  and  never  appeared  even  locally  on 
paper  in  the  shape  of  a  budget,  was  in  real  fact 


A.D.  1900]     MANY    FINGERS    IN    THE    PIE      209 

somewhat  as  follows  : — about  1,500  Men  rulers 
would  have  to  net  on  the  average  at  least  10,000 
taels  a  year,  over  and  above  all  allowances,  in 
order  to  make  their  own  fortunes  and  those  of 
their  superiors.  The  "  allowances  and  salaries  " 
issued  by  the  Emperor  were  really  held  back  as 
security,  and  very  often  quietly  peculated,  by 
the  Men's  superiors.  These  Men  would  also  have 
to  spend  on  the  average  at  least  another  10,000 
taels  a  year  in  order  to  entertain  passing  officials 
of  rank,  pay  the  cost  of  their  own  maintenance 
(including  police),  the  salaries  of  secretaries,  etc. 
Of  course  some  Men  secretaries  would  have  their 
tens  of  thousands,  whilst  others  would  only  have 
their  hundreds  of  taels  ;  I  only  speak  of  averages. 
The  various  customs  monopolists  would  also 
require  5,000,000  taels  a  year  for  their  own 
fortunes,  and  to  defray  the  cost  of  presents  to 
the  fisc  at  Peking  ;  scarcely  any  of  the  customs 
receipts  went  to  the  cerarium,  whether  local  or 
central.  In  other  words,  the  45  or  46,000,000 
of  official  revenue  must  be  at  least  doubled  if  we 
are  to  get  even  approximately  at  the  first  instal- 
ment only  of  what  was  really  extracted  as  actual 
working  revenue  from  the  popular  bed-rock  in  a 
regular  way.  And  all  this,  again,  is  quite  apart 
from  the  irregular  tyranny,  bribery,  peculation, 
and  extortion  by  special  inquisitors,  military 
men,  etc. ;  and  apart  from  the  rapacity  of  tax- 
collectors,  police,  and  so  on.  Anything  done  for 
the  public  good,  such  as  road-making,  bridge- 
repairing,  sanitation,  charitable  establishments, 
municipal  police,  local  schools,  feasts,  theatricals, 
lighting,  police — in  fact  everything  except  what 
concerns  the  Emperor  and  his  service — was,  and 
is  (sulDJect,  however,  to  a  few  wholesome  reforms 
introduced  since  the  "  Boxer  "  smash  of  1900), 
defrayed  by  local  subscriptions  or  popular  rates, 
municipally  or  rurally  imposed,  over  and  above 


210 


REVENUE 


[chap.  X 


the  State  and  official  taxes  levied  directly  or 
indirectly,  as  above  described,  in  the  name  of 
the  central  or  local  government. 

Having  now  taken  a  retrospective  glance  at  the 
principles  upon  which  revenues  have  been  col- 
lected and  spent  in  the  immediate  past,  let  us 
endeavour  to  gain  an  insight  into  the  working 
of  a  contemporary  budget  as  it  was  up  to  the 
date  of  post-Boxer  reforms  : — Towards  the  end 
of  each  year  the  Board  of  Revenue,  like  a  distant 
embodiment  of  Themis,  looks  round  upon  pro- 
vincial mankind,  takes  up  its  files,  and  sees  that 
the  following  items  of  expenditure,  in  which  the 
Central  Government  has  an  immediate  interest, 
are  good,  and  must  be  defrayed  : — 


1.  Pay  and  salaries  at  Peking 

2.  Palace  needs 

3.  Russian  and  French  frontier 

4.  Yang-tsze  defence  armies 
6.  Navies 

6.  Provincial  armies 

7.  Yellow  River 

8.  Getting  grain  to  Peking 
Railways    . 
Arsenals 

Foreign  loans  (repaid) 
New-fangled  notions    , 


armies 


Taels. 
8,000,000 
1,400,000 
6,000,000 

^3,000,000 
1,000,000 

20,000,000 
1,500,000 
1,700,000 


Total  Taels     41,600,000 


It  will  at  once  be  seen  that,  even  in  the  good 
old  times  of  comparative  solvency  previous  to 
the  Japanese  war  of  1894,  the  expenditure  on 
armies,  navies,  and  things  connected  with  them 
had  risen  within  a  century  from  19,000,000  to 
38,000,000  taels;  but  after  1898,  again,  both 
the  central  and  the  provincial  armies  were  im- 
proved at  great  expense,  and  in  spite  of  dis- 
bandings  and  retrenchments  in  1900  probably 
cost  much  more  than  40,000,000.  Hence  it 
then  became  urgently  necessary  at  once  to  re- 


A.D,  1896-1900]      EFFECT    OF    REFORMS  211 

duce  the  20,000,000  taels  wasted  upon  utterly 
useless  provincial  troops ;  hence,  again,  dis- 
content and  disloyalty ;  but  none  the  less 
reforms  took  place  at  the  persistent  urging  of 
the  "  three  good  viceroys  "  (p.  187).  The  Palace 
needs  ceased  to  increase.  The  Yellow  River 
cost  less  than  it  did  ;  not  because  its  condition 
was  better,  but  because  times  were  worse,  and 
the  people  must  therefore  suffer  in  the  shape  of 
extra  floods  and  diminished  public  works  ;  in 
1898  Li  Hung-chang  himself  was  set  to  work  to 
effect  a  genuine  amelioration  on  the  spot  if  he 
could.  When  China  was  building  her  own  rail- 
ways in  a  modest  way,  and  at  snail-like  pace, 
the  provinces  had  to  send  up  between  them 
about  500,000  taels  a  year  for  that  purpose ; 
but  when,  in  1886,  the  new  Admiralty  was  estab- 
lished in  consequence  of  the  shock  caused  by  the 
French  war,  the  railway  fund  was  partly  diverted 
to  (the  elder)  Prince  Ch'un,  the  Emperor  Kwang- 
sii's  father,  as  Lord  High  Admiral.  Again,  when 
the  Japanese  destroyed  the  fleets,  and  Prince 
Ch'un  was  dead,  portions  of  both  funds  were 
devoted  to  "pressing  needs"' — in  this  case  to 
"  building  a  new  palace  for  the  Dowager-Em- 
press "  ;  and  in  1900  a  beginning  was  being  made 
with  a  new  navy,  whilst  railways  gradually  got 
involved  with  foreign  loans  and  syndicates. 
Arsenals  had  an  up-and-down  perfunctory  and 
wasteful  life  too  in  their  haste  to  complete  mili- 
tary preparations.  Finally,  foreign  loans,  old  and 
new,  the  repayment  of  which,  and  of  interest 
thereon,  in  1900  absorbed  about  25,000,000  taels 
a  year,  were  entirely  a  new  charge  on  the  revenue. 
New  activities  included  concessions,  speculations, 
mills,  steamer  companies,  mints,  foreign  copper 
for  modern  coins,  mines,  telegraphs,  telephones, 
electricity,  etc.,  some  of  which  soon  began  to  pay, 
and  some  of  which  were  worked  at  a  loss  ;  in  a 
16 


212  REVENUE  [chap,  x 

few  cases  the  central  or  a  provincial  government 
found  itself  financially  involved  in  one  or  more 
of  these,  as  for  instance  in  the  Shanghai-Ningpo 
railway  and  the  K'ai-Lan  coal  industry  (p.  168). 
In  their  heart  of  hearts  the  Chinese,  or  at  least 
those  "  in  "  with  the  Manchu  Government,  would 
have  liked  to  pitch  the  whole  lot  into  the  sea, 
and  go  back  to  happy  old  times.  And  (here  I 
repeat  in  1916  with  emphasis  the  exact  words 
I  used  in  1900)  I  am  not  sure  that  they  are  not 
right ;  "  progress  "  does  not  seem  to  conduce 
to  content  at  all ;  and,  personally,  I  think  there 
is  much  to  be  said  for  the  life  of  a  so-called 
*'  barbarian." 

It  will  be  seen  at  a  glance  that,  bad  though 
things  were  before  the  Japanese  war  of  1894-5, 
matters  were  infinitely  worse  in  1900  after  the 
Germans  in  1897  had  set  the  pace  for  "  grab." 
The  Board  had  to  see  that  60,000,000  or 
70,000,000  taels  were  found  annually  for  expenses, 
instead  of  the  40,000,000  of  the  happy  old  dolce 
far  niente  days  :  this  meant  a  corresponding 
diminution  in  the  "free  resources"  which  used 
ultimately  to  find  a  way  into  various  private 
pockets.  It  may  well  be  imagined  that  the  result 
was  infinitely  more  serious  when  the  "  Boxer  " 
affair  came  to  be  written  off,  in  1901,  with  its 
damage  to  foreign  investments,  compensation  for 
foreign  expenditures,  and  so  on.  Poor  old  Li 
Hung-chang's  desperate  bargaining  with  eleven 
implacable  envoys  at  Peking  is  one  of  the  most 
pathetic  stories  in  the  world's  history.  On  the 
28th  September  the  Board  announced  the  trifle 
of  982,238,150  taels.  On  the  1st  November  the 
tough  old  statesman  was  reported  to  be  spitting 
blood ;  on  the  7th  he  was  dead. 

The  Board  found  that  the  receipts  it  could, 
at  the  time  of  Li's  death,  count  on  for  the  year 
were  (roughly)  :■ — 


A.D.1901]  CRUSHING  "BOXER"  INDEMNITIES  218 


Taeltf. 

1.  Land-tax,  in  money    ....      26,000,000 

2.  Native  Customs 

4,260,000 

3.  Foreign  Customs 

.      22,750,000 

4.  Profits  on  salt    . 

14,000,000 

5.  Likin 

14,000,000 

6.  Profits  on  native  opium 

3,000,000 

7.  Miscellaneous 

3,000,000 

Loans  and  benevolences 

— 

Sale  of  office 

— 

Foreign  loans  (received) 

— 

Total  Taels     87,000,000 

This  total  represents  the  maximum  probable 
receipts  up  to  the  time  when  the  "  Boxer  "  re- 
bellion broke  out,  and  does  not  necessarily  con- 
flict with  any  other  tables  given  in  this  chapter. 
There  is  even  here  an  excess  over  ordinary 
expenditure  of  46,000,000  taels,  which  total 
still  leaves  25,000,000  for  the  service  of  loans  ; 
3,000,000  for  arsenals  ;  2,000,000  for  railways, 
palaces,  and  other  novelties  ;  and  16,000,000  for 
provincial  needs. 

Things  would  thus  not  have  been  so  very  bad, 
in  spite  of  parlous  times,  if  all  the  receipts  had 
been  paid,  in  one  currency,  into  one  central  chest 
or  account  (as  the  Foreign  Customs  receipts  are) ; 
and  if  all  payments  had  been  drawn  in  one  cur- 
rency from  this  one  chest,  and  remitted  in  one 
way  ;  but,  in  the  first  place,  all  provinces  had  and 
have  two  main  currencies  of  pure  silver  (several 
"  touches  ")  and  copper  cash  (several  qualities), 
the  relation  between  which  two  differs  in  each 
town  every  day.  Besides  this,  each  province 
has  its  own  "  touch  "  and  "  weight  "  of  a  silver 
ounce  ;  and  some  provinces  use  dollars,  chopped 
and  unchopped,  by  weight  or  by  piece,  as  well 
as  pure  silver ;  and  the  dollar  exchange  varies 
daily  locally  and  centrally  in  regard  to  both 
copper  cash  and  silver.  Even  this  difficulty, 
which  involves  an  enormous  waste  of  time  and 
energy,  and  opens  the  door  to  innumerable  and 


214  REVENUE  [chap,  x 

inscrutable  "  squeezes,"  might  be  philosophic- 
ally ignored  if  receipts  and  disbursements  were 
lumped  in  one  account,— if  the  venous  blood 
were  allowed  a  free  course  to  the  heart,  and  the 
arterial  blood  a  clean  run  back  to  the  extremities. 
In  spite  of  the  multitudinous  reforms  introduced 
or  at  least  favourably  considered  during  the  last 
years  of  the  Empire  and  the  five  years  of  the 
Republic,  most  of  these  currency  absurdities  are 
as  rampant  as  ever  ;  but,  before  we  enter  into 
the  present  financial  situation,  let  us  consider 
the — immensa  moles  of  incompetence  and  corrup- 
tion with  which  men  of  the  Sir  Richard  Dane 
type  have  to  deal  before  they  can  make  any 
secular  im.pression  upon,  or  give  permanent 
shape  to  this  jelly-fish  mass  of  corruption.  The 
Board,  which  was  as  corrupt  and  conservative 
as  the  provinces,  went  about  its  business  in  a 
very  hand-to-mouth,  rough-and-tumble  sort  of 
way.  Instead  of  saying  :  "  Your  receipts  are 
5,000,000,  and  your  disbursements  4,900,000  ; 
send  100,000  to  the  balance  chest,"  it  used  to 
say  :— 

"  From  your  land-tax,  eight-tenths  nominal 
of  which  are  this  year  only  expected  (after  deduc- 
tion made  for  disasters),  500,000  will  be  sent  for 
Peking  salaries  (original),  100,000  for  the  same 
(extra),  200,000  for  the  Palace,  and  100,000  to 
make  up  for  shortage  in  the  remittances  to  Man- 
churia for  1896.  It  must  arrive  (with  the  usual 
extras  for  Board's  fees)  in  part  before  the  seventh 
and  entirely  before  the  tenth  moon.  As  your 
salt  likin  is  transferred  to  the  Inspector-General 
of  Foreign  Customs  for  the  service  of  loans, 
six-tenths  of  the  ordinary  likin  which  used  to  go 
to  the  Manchurian  armies  must  replace  the  salt 
likin  remittances  on  Peking  account,  whilst  four- 
tenths  will  take  the  place  of  what  used  to  be 


A.D.  1880-1900]     HARLEQUIN    FINANCE  215 

repayments  on  Full  Kien  account,  but  wliich 
since  1886  have  been  transferred  to  the  appro- 
priation for  Yiin  Nan  copper  (minus  scale  and 
waste).  If  this  be  insufficient,  the  saving  of 
7  per  cent,  on  the  scale  for  army  payments  accu- 
mulated since  1881  can  be  temporarily  trans- 
ferred to  the  arsenal  contribution  (subject  to 
discount).  The  province  of  Kwei  Chou  complains 
that  your  6,000  taels  a  month  for  its  frontier 
army  have  not  been  sent.  Sz  Ch'wan  has  been 
directed  to  advance  the  requisite  sum ;  and  mean- 
while, as  the  Inspector-General  has  compounded 
with  Sz  Ch'wan  and  Hu  Peh  for  a  lump  annual 
sum  down  instead  of  collecting  their  joint  salt 
likin,  you  can  direct  the  Salt  Commissioner  to 
send  up  quickly  for  the  new  Tientsin  artillery 
the  200,000  taels  a  year  formerly  devoted  to  the 
Canton  torpedo  college." 

This  picture  of  imperial  Chinese  finance  is  of 
course  an  artificial  one,  slightly  exaggerated  with 
an  extra  tinge  of  local  colour  so  as  to  illustrate  the 
hopeless  confusion  that  reigns.  Each  viceroy  or 
governor  used  to  dispute  every  new  demand,  and 
it  was  quite  understood  that  some  appropria- 
tions were  intended  to  be  more  serious  than 
others.  Some  simpleton  of  an  honest  man  from 
time  to  time  threw  everything  out  of  gear  by 
allowing  a  truth  to  escape  :  but  the  Board  never 
let  a  "  flat  "  of  this  sort  score  in  fact,  even  though 
he  might  appear  to  do  so  in  principle.  A  governor 
could  not  be  expected  to  show  zeal  for  Yiin  Nan 
copper  when  he  knew  that  the  high  officer  in 
special  charge  was  making  a  fortune  out  of  it. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  "  Board's  rice,"  though  a 
matter  of  no  public  importance,  was  always 
promptly  sent ;  on  the  same  general  ground  that 
a  consul,  in  writing  to  the  Foreign  Office,  is  always 
very  careful  to  docket  his  despatches  neatly' — 


216  REVENUE  [chap,  x 

to  avoid  a  wigging.  It  does  not  do  to  quarrel 
with  your  bread  and  butter ;  and  underlings  at 
headquarters  can  easily  put  a  spoke  into  the 
wheel  of  the  biggest  man  in  the  provinces  if  he 
gets  nasty  to  them. 

There  were  many  other  absurd  results  of  this 
rule-of-thumb  system.  Province  A  received 
subsidies  from  province  B,  but,  itself  owing 
others  to  province  C,  paid  B  on  behalf  of  C. 
Thus  there  are  two  freights  to  pay,  and  two 
losses  on  exchange.  Sometimes  A  might  be 
directed  even  to  pay  a  subsidy  to  a  province  B, 
which  already  pays  one  to  province  A.  Funds 
which  might  easily  be  sent  by  draft  were  usually 
despatched  in  hollowed-out  logs  of  wood,  with  a 
guard  of  soldiers  as  escort,  accompanied  by  carts, 
fighting  "  bullies,"  and  a  commissioned  officer. 
Even  when  sent  by  draft,  there  was  a  charge  of 
2  or  3  per  cent,  for  remitting,  and  a  commissioned 
officer  was  sent  to  carry  the  draft — (just  as  we 
send  favoured  officers  to  carry  treaties  or  news  of 
victory),  so  that  he  might  gain  "  kudos  "  for  his 
zeal.  It  was  pathetic  to  read  the  accounts  of 
hundreds  of  coolies  trotting  all  the  way  to 
Shanghai  from  Shan  Si  with  hollowed  logs  of  wood 
containing  silver  wherewith  to  repay  the  interest 
on  European  loans.  The  extraordinary  care  and 
punctuality  exacted  in  matters  of  form,  duty, 
or  national  honour  in  Manchu  times  were  only 
equalled  by  the  shameless  peculation  and  callous 
waste  of  time  and  money  which  prevailed  in 
personal  matters  connected  with  the  performance 
of  the  same  public  duty.  Officers  of  high  rank, 
who  were  known  to  make  30,000  or  40,000  taels 
a  year  out  of  their  posts,  gravely  worked  out  their 
balances  to  the  thousand-millionth  part  of  an 
ounce,  forgetting  that  (even  if  the  clerk's  salary 
were  only  sixpence  a  day)  the  time  occupied  in 
counting  and   subtracting   each  line   of  figures 


A.D.  1900]  FARCICAL    FINANCE  217 

would  cover,  ten  thousand  times  over,  tlie  clerk's 
salary  rate  per  minute.  In  a  word,  the  whole 
Chinese  financial  system  was,  and  to  a  certain 
extent  still  is  rotten  to  the  core  ;  childish,  and 
incompetent ;  and  should  be  swept  away  root 
and  branch.  I  am  no  financier,  but,  so  far  as  I 
can  see,  Peking  is  as  hopeless  as  ever,  whilst  the 
republican  provinces  have  cut  the  Gordian  Knot 
by  the  simple  process  of  not  sending  any  revenue 
at  all.  Until  there  is  a  fixed  currency,  a  Euro- 
pean accountancy  in  all  departments,  and  a 
system  of  definite  sufficient  salaries,  all  reform 
is  hopeless  to  look  for,  and  it  is  astounding 
that  the  ministers  do  not  act  upon  this  view 
when  they  contemplate  the  results  of  Sir  R. 
Hart's  and  Sir  R.  Dane's  work. 


Table  of  possible  Revenue  Items  in  1900  for  Eighteen  Provinces  of 
China  and  Three  Provinces  of  Manchuria.^ 

Taels. 

Money  land  tax 25,967,000 

Grain  tax,  value  in  money,  commuted  or  not  7,540,000 

Native  Customs 4,230,000 

Taxes  of  all  kinds  on  Salt,  direct  or  indirect  13,050,000 

Foreign  Customs  CoUectorate  .          .          .  22,052,000 

Likui,  excluding  that  on  salt  and  opium    .  12,160,000 

Taxes  on  native  opium  and  opium  licences  2,830,000 
Miscellaneous  undefined  taxes,  licences,  fees, 

etc 2,165,000 

Duties  on  reed  flats          ....  215,000 

Rents  on  special  tenures  ....  690,000 

Corvees  and  purveyances  (roughly  valued)  110,000 

Sale  of  office  and  titles   ....  266,000 

Subsidies  from  other  provinces          .          .  9,282,000 

Tea  taxes 900,000 

Fuel  and  grain  taxes        ....  110,000 


Total,  Taels      .  101,567,000 

[Native  loans  and  benevolences  not  included 

in  the  Grand  Total,  as  being  exceptional]      [6,334,000] 


^  For  fuller  particulars,  see  the  reprint  from   Otia  Mersiana 
alluded  to  in  the  chapter  on  "  Population." 


218                                REVENUE 

Table  of  Total  Revenues  of  each  Province  forming  the 

Name  of                        Taels  (including             Name  of 
Province.                                  subsidies).             Province. 

An  Hwei        .          .     4,033,000      Shan  Si 
Cheh  Kiang  .          .      5,786,000      Shan  Tung    . 
Chill  Li          .          .      6,360,000     Shen  Si 
Fuh  Kien      .          .      6,035,000     Sz  Ch'wan     . 
Ho  Nan         .          .      3,235,000     Yiin  Nan       . 
Hu  Nan         .          .      2,765,000 
Hu  Peh          .          .      7,320,000             Total,  Taels 
Kan  Suh        .          .      5,946,000 
Kiang  Si        .          .      4,800,000     Sheng  King  . 
Kiang  Su       .          .   21,450,000     Kirin    . 
Kwang  Si      .          .      1,730,000     Tsitsihar 
Kwang  Tung           .      7,525,000 
Kwei  Chou    .          .      1,107,000            Grand  Total 
[Less  subsidies  from  one  province  to  the 
other]       ...... 

[chap.  X 

above  total. 

Taels  (including 
subsidies). 

.     4,040,000 
.      4,530,000 
.      2,380,000 
.      6,050,000 
.      1,985,000 

.   97,077,000 

.      3,340,000 
470,000 
680,000 

.    101,567,000 
9,282,000 

Translation  of  official  statement  of  expendi- 
tures for  1910  as  telegraphed  to  each  Province  by 
the  Board ;  it  will  be  seen  that  the  expenditure 
in  1910  was  double  that  of  the  revenue  in  1900. 


Feng-t'ien  (S.  Manchuria) 
Kirin  (Central  Manchuria) 
Heh-lung  Kiang  (N.  Manchuria) 
Chih  Li  .  .  . 

Jehol  (military  governor) 
Kiang  Su  (Soochow  Division) 

Do  (Nanking  Division) 
An  Hwei 
Kiang  Si 
Shan  Tung 
Shan  Si 
Ho  Nan 
Shen  Si 
Kan  Suh 
Sin  Kiang  (  = 
Fuh  Kien 
Cheh  Kiang 
Hu  Peh 
Hu  Nan 
Sz  Ch'wan 
Kwang  Tung 
Kwang  Si 
Yiin  Nan 
Kwei  Chou 

(For    further   particulars, 
10th  April  1910.) 


New  Territory) 


see 


Taels. 

15,587,889 
5,355,657 
2,290,906 

23,574,139 
841,264 

24,890,000 

25,746,182 
6,741,779 
7,895,177 

10,525,928 
6,140,252 
6,600,094 
4,127,565 
3,290,757 
3,346,564 
6,941,107 
8,473,207 

18,521,400 
6,424,200 

14,964,926 

27,610,227 
4,992,157 
6,983,166 
1,791,056 

Economist 


for 


A.D.  1911-1913]  EXTRAORDINARY  BUDGETS    219 

The  Board's  circular  instructions  for  1911, 
the  last  year  of  the  Empire,  were  that  in  making 
estimates  of  expenditure  for  the  Budget,  items 
must  be  gathered  under  four  main  heads — to 
wit  :- — 

1.  The  requirements  of  the  Peking  yamens. 

2.  Tliosc  of  each  province  under  the  re- 
modelled system  of  official  appointments. 

3.  The  internal  administrative  expenditure  of 
each  province. 

4.  Garrisons,  proconsulates,  residents,  etc., 
in  Mongolia  and  Tibet. 

The  deficit  for  1911  was  budgeted  for  88,000,000 
taels. 

The  First  Republican  Budget  showed  a 
deficit  of  280,520,000  taels,  consisting  of  the 
following : — 

Taels. 

Deficit  on  the  Manchu  Budget  .  .  .      88,000,000 

„    "Annual"  „        .  .  .      82,520,000 

Provisional  Expenditure  .  .  .    110,000,000 

In  other  words,  enlightened  democracy,  taking 
Mr.  Micawber  as  model,  "  gives  an  I.O.U.  for 
total  amxount,"  for  the  Income  side  has  "  nil  " 
entries. 

The  Budget  for  1913  (the  first  complete  year 
of  President  Yuan  Shi-k'ai's  government)  was  as 
follows  V — 

Total  expenditure,  about     .  .         .      $903,000,000 

consisting  of 

Total  ordinary  expenditure,  about        .  410,000,000 

„       extraordinary  expenditure,  about  163,000,000 

„       reserve  funds,  about  .  .  .  230,000,000 

„       fund      to     encourage      industries 

[our  old  friend  Yiin  Nan  copper 

specially  included]  .  ,  .  100,000,000 


220  REVENUE  [chap,  x 

To  meet  the  above  expenditure,  the  available 
revenue  is  given  as  follows  :- — 


Total  revenue. 


about    . 


.    $726,733,208 


consisting  of 

1.  Land-tax  „  .  .  62,690,988 

2.  Salt-tax  „  .  .  49,954,250 

3.  Customs  „  .  .  63,696,465 

4.  Likin  „  .  .  18,292,002 

5.  Sundry  taxes  „  .  .  6,342,217 

6.  Government  Industries  „  .  .  12,549,627 
8.  Sundry  (royalties,  etc.)  „  .  .  28,674,615 

(a)  Ordinary 265,723,208 

[but  the  total  is  only  $222,100,064,  and 

item  No.  7  (which  is  omitted  !)  accounts 

presumably  for  the  missing  $33,623,144] 

(6)  Extraordinary    (foreign    loans,    etc.), 

about 70,000,000 

(c)  Revenue  to  be  carried  forward  (internal 

loans,  etc.) 400,000,000 

I  do  not  discuss  this  absurd  "Budget"  seri- 
ously ;  there  are  numerous  explanations  given 
as  to  why  the  Customs  is  underestimated  so 
many  tenths,  why  salt  so  many  tenths,  etc., 
etc.' — the  old  thimble-rigging  in  a  new  form. 
In  short,  complete  incapacity  of  the  good  old 
order  is  exhibited  all  round.  It  will  be  noted 
that  the  above  "  Budget  "  is  on  a  silver  dollar 
basis,  and  that  a  dollar  was  (roughly)  two  shillings 
— i.e.  has  25  per  cent,  less  silver  than  a  tael; 
hence  the  sterling  "  receipts  "  of  this  precious 
"  budgetastro  "  would  be  very  roughly  about 
£72,000,000,  or  570,000,000  taels,  and  the  ex- 
penditure £90,000,000  or  720,000,000  taels.^ 

China's  really  serious  indebtedness  only  began 
after  her  foolish  Japan  war  in  1894-1895,  and 
ever  since  then  she  has  plunged  deeper  and  deeper 

^  Silver  has  been  unusually  high  this  last  Christmas,  and  £60 
I  remitted  only  fetched  $390  in  Shanghai.  Two  years  ago  the 
same  amount  of  gold  remitted  brought  me  considerably  over 
$600.  Thus  allowance  must  be  made  in  all  my  scattered  financial 
remarks  for  the  period  to  which  those  remarks  refer. 


A.D.  1894-1913]      CHINA'S    INDEBTEDNESS       221 

into  the  treacherous  mire.  Her  total  owings 
cannot  now  fall  far  short  of  £200,000,000/  the 
interest  on  which  (including  amortisation)  is 
much  greater  than  her  total  revenue  (liberal 
"squeezes"  all  round  included) for  1894.  When 
the  Reorganisation  or  Five  Power  loan  of  1913 
was  on  the  tapis,  a  complete  list  of  all  out- 
standing indebtednesses  was  published  in  the 
North  China  Herald  for  15th  February  1913,  to 
which  lovers  of  mammon  are  referred. 

^  A  Hongkong  newspaper  received  as  I  correct  proofs,  says 
£150,000,000  ;  but  my  estimate  includes  short  loans,  provincial 
loans,  informal  loans,  irregular  loans,  etc. 


CHAPTER    XI 

THE    SALT    GABELLE 

The  salt  industry  contributes  its  share  to  illus- 
trate for  us  both  the  natural  principles  on  which 
China  is  divided  into  pro\'inces,  and  the  con- 
tinuity of  her  institutions.  A  statesman  named 
Sang  Hung-yang  is  stated  to  have  been  the 
first  (in  90  B.C.)  to  establish  an  excise  upon  salt. 
It  will  be  noticed  from  the  accompanying  map 
that  the  areas  from  which  a  revenue  is  derived 
from  salt  do  not  entirely  correspond  with  the 
political  subdivisions  of  the  Empire  into  groups 
of  provinces.  We  have  the  Valley  of  the  Canton 
River,  the  Old  Region  of  the  Northern  Yiieh 
kingdoms,  the  Old  Kingdoms  of  Wu  and  Ch'u, 
all  supplied  with  sea-salt,  extracted  and  pre- 
pared in  different  ways,  according  to  the  natural 
facilities  at  hand  in  each  producing  place.  Then 
we  have  the  various  kinds  of  well-salt,  with  or 
without  fuel  in  the  shape  of  gas,  which  supply 
the  western  and  mountainous  parts  of  China, 
broadly  corresponding  to  the  ancient  Kingdoms 
of  Shuh,  Tien,  and  K'ien.^  The  lake-salt  of 
the  desert  competes  with  the  pond-salt  of  Shan 
Si  for  the  service  of  what  may  roughly  be 
styled  the  mixed  Tartar-Chinese  regions.  Finally, 
there  are  the  primitive  reed-flats  of  the  north, 

^  The  ancient  kingdoms,  and  their  gradual  absorption,  do  not 
fall  within  the  scope  of  this  book  ;  the  question  is  analysed  in 
Ancient  China  Simplified,  published  in  1908, 

222 


A.D.  400-1900]      CANTON  SEA-SALT  AREAS        223 

which  serve  the  needs  of  the  greater  part  of 
Old  China.  These  administrative  areas  will  be 
found  to  correspond  in  a  general  sense  with  the 
different  stages  of  Chinese  conquest,  and  with 
the  spread  of  Chinese  influence.  A  glance  at 
the  list  of  provinces  given  upon  page  5  of  the 
first  chapter,  and  a  reference  to  the  remarks 
upon  Han  Wu  Ti's  annexations,  in  the  chapter 
OH  "  History,"  will  perhaps  assist  to  make  this 
clearer.  A  reference  to  the  first  chapter  will 
show  us  that  the  vast  tract  called  the  Two 
Kwang — that  is,  West  Kwang  and  East  Kwang 
— being  the  northern  half  of  the  old  state  of 
South  Yiieh,  is  simply  the  delta  about  Canton, 
including  all  the  network  of  streams  which  in 
any  v.ay  contribute  to  it  :  the  Swatow  River 
system  in  the  east  is  really  by  nature  and  ethno- 
graphy part  of  Full  Kien.  Accordingly  we  find 
that  the  sea-salt  v.hich  is  prepared  along  the 
Canton  coasts  is,  and  since  the  fourth  century 
always  has  been,  all  concentrated  under  one 
management.  This  was,  and  probably  still  is 
the  modern  administration  of  the  First  Class 
Salt  Commissioner  at  Canton,  aided  by  a  Second 
Class  Commissioner  for  Kwang  Si,  both  in 
Manchu  times  subject  to  the  supreme  nominal 
direction  of  the  Two  Kwang  Vicerov.  There 
were  seventeen  subordinate  mandarins  on  the 
staff,  and  159  depots  of  all  kinds,  managed  by 
six  different  ''chests'*  or  counting-houses,  the 
ancient  head  centre  of  all  being,  as  of  old,  at 
Tung-kwan,  lower  down  than  Canton,  at  the 
junction  of  the  ''Great"  and  the  "Lesser" 
rivers.  Ovring  to  financial  straits,  efforts  were 
made  after  the  "Boxer"  indemnity  settlement 
to  stretch  the  annual  yield  of  excise  as  far  as 
possible,  say,  to  1,000,000  taels  :  in  the  last  year 
of  the  Empire,  1911,  this  figure  was  quadrupled. 
It  will  be  noticed  that  the  head  waters  of  the 


224  THE   SALT   GABELLE  [chap,  xi 

West  River  above  Peh-seh  rise  in  Kwang-nan  Fu 
( Yiin  Nan) :  accordingly  this  prefecture  ^   alone 
uses  Canton  salt,  and  in  return  sends  supplies  of 
copper  for  the  mint.     One  of  the  northern  tribu- 
taries of  this  West  River  rises  in  the  township 
of  Ku-chou  (in  Kwei  Chou  province),   and  in 
the    same    way   that    department    gets    its    salt 
supplies    from    Canton,    instead    of     from    Sz 
Ch'wan  or  the  Hwai  monopoly.      It  is  not  quite 
so  obvious  why  three  districts  in  the  south  of 
Hu   Nan   and   three   whole   prefectures   in   the 
south    of    Kiang    Si    should    make    two    more 
exceptions,  though  certainly  part  of  the  so-called 
"  North  "  River  rises  in  the  first-named  province, 
and  part  of  the  "  Small  "  River  in  Kiang  Si  : 
no  doubt  there  are  special  local  conditions  to 
consider  ;    and   in  any  case   the   irregularity  is 
nearly  a  century   old,   at  the  very  least.     For 
salt  administrative  purposes  the  Two  Kwang, 
so  far  as  they  are  drained  into  the  delta,  are 
divided    into   two    distributions  :     that    of   the 
"  Great  River  "  (west  of  Canton),  and  that  of 
the    "Small    River"    (east    of    Canton).     The 
Swatow  River  rises  in  T'ing-chou  (in  Fuh  Kien 
province),  and  therefore  that  large  prefectural 
area  uses  the  Canton  salt  in  vogue  in  the  valley 
of  the  Swatow  River,  in  preference  to  the  less 
accessible  coast  salt  of  Hing-hwa  (Fuh  Kien). 
The  island  of  Hainan  is   of  course  included   in 
the   Canton   scheme,   which  thus   rounds   itself 
off  by  cutting  corners  from  provinces  politically 
and     financially     appertaining     to     rival     salt 
industries. 

The  salt  industry  of  Fuh  Kien,  being  smaller 
than  that   above   described,   is   managed  by   a 

^  Although  fu  prefectures  (groups  of  Men)  are  now  aboHshed, 
no  new  maps  are  yet  pubUshed,  and  accordingly  the  old  nomen- 
clature must  be,  partially  at  least,  continued  for  the  purposes 
of  this  chapter. 


A.D.  1000-1900]  OLD  YUEH  COUNTRY  SALT     225 

Second  Class  Commissioner  and  seventeen  sub- 
ordinate mandarins,  who  were  in  Manclm  times 
under  the  supreme  nominal  control  of  the  Viceroy 
at   Foochow  :    this  administration  (like   that  of 
Canton  just  described,  which  latter  dates  from 
the  organisers  of  the  fourth  century  of  our  era) 
can   only  be  traced   historically  back  to  times 
when  a  good  political  hold  upon  the  land  had 
been  first  obtained  by  advancing  Chinese  civili- 
sation    (say    A.D.    1000).      I    find    that,    when 
changes  were  made  in  1157,  the  dues  produced 
80,000  "  strings  "  a  year.     The  number  of  sub- 
ordinate salt  officers  employed  in  each  province 
depends  upon  the  stage  at  which  the  salt  leaves 
official  hands  to  pass  through  middlemen  to  the 
consumers  :    hence  in  Fuh  Kien  it  is  unusually 
large.     Since  Formosa  became  Japanese  terri- 
tory in  1895,  the  development  of  Fuh  Kien  salt 
productiveness  has  of  course  been  further  circum- 
scribed, at  least  officially  ;  but  I  have  no  doubt 
that,  with  so  conservative  a  people,  things  would 
continue  to  run  very  much  in  their  old  channels, 
so  long  as  Japanese  excise  and  customs  interests 
were  not  adversely  affected.     During  the  Taiping 
rebellion   of   1855-1865   there   was   a   period   of 
spasmodic   energy  in  Fuh  Kien,   owing  to  the 
transport    service    of   the    Yang-tsze    or    Hwai 
system  having  become  disorganised  ;    but  after- 
wards matters  settled  down  to  a  dull  uninterest- 
ing   routine,    and    very    little    information    of 
interest  reached  the  general  inquirer.     The  total 
nominal    income    raised    from    Fuh    Kien    salt 
in  1899  was  about  500,000  taels  a  year ;    in  1911 
thrice  that  sum.    As  an  instance  of  what  '*  hanky- 
panky"  goes  on  behind  the  scenes  in  China,  I 
may   mention  that   I   once   went   to   the   point 
where  the  head  waters  of  three  provinces  meet, 
and,    sailing    down    several    hundred    miles    to 
Wenchow  (Cheh  Kiang),  met  enormous  fleets  of 


226  THE   SALT   GABELLE  [chap,  xi 

Foochow  salt  boats  actually  working  their 
way  up  from  behind,  as  it  were,  to  the  northern 
and  inland  frontiers  of  Fuh  Kien.  From  in- 
quiries made  I  found  that  a  huge  trade  of  70,000 
tons  a  year — that  is,  much  more  than  the  total 
official  trade — was  connived  at  by  the  sagacious 
likin  officials  of  Cheh  Kiang.  French  statistics 
place  the  salt  consum.ption  of  all  Indo-China  in 
1889  at  150,000  tons,  so  that  my  conjectural 
figures  may  not  be  far  from  the  mark,  having 
in  view  the  comparative  areas  of  Indo-China 
and  the  region  served  as  explained. 

Following  our  way  up  the  coast,  we  now 
reach  the  next  province  of  Cheh  Kiang,  which, 
for  the  purposes  of  its  salt  administration,  is 
still  divided  into  East  and  West  Cheh.  This 
nomenclature  takes  us  back  to  times  when  one 
of  the  Yang-tsze  embouchures  entered  the  sea 
at  Hangchow,  and  a  considerable  part  of  the 
very  modern  province  of  Kiang  Sti  was  included 
in  the  Cheh  regions.  In  the  year  1132,  what 
was  called  the  Hwai-Cheh  salt  system  or  systems 
was  put  on  an  Excise  basis.  From  Shanghai, 
all  down  the  coast-half  of  the  province  to  the  Fuh 
Kien  frontier,  was  the  division  of  Eastern  Cheh; 
and  the  inner  portion,  including  Chinkiang, 
Nanking,  and  Hangchow,  was  the  division  of 
Western  Cheh,  as  already  partly  explained  in  the 
chapter  on  "  Population."  Just  as  in  England 
our  ancient  dioceses  overlap  more  modern 
administrative  boundaries,  so  in  China,  for  grain 
and  salt  purposes,  the  obsolete  divisions  of  Kiang 
Nan  and  Two  Cheh  are  still  in  use,  though 
Kiang  Nan  has  become  two  provinces,  and  the 
Two  Cheh  have  become  one.  As  the  area  of 
supply  is  large,  there  is  a  First  Class  Commis- 
sioner in  charge  of  it,  in  Manchu  times  under 
the  nominal  supreme  direction  of  the  Governor 
at  Hangchow;    and  there  were  thirty-nine   sub- 


A.D.  1900-1910]  SEA  SALT   OF  CHEH   KIANG  227 

ordinates  at  the  various  distributing  depots. 
As  in  the  case  of  the  two  industries  already 
described,  the  salt  is  nearly  all,  if  not  all,  sea- 
salt,  collected  and  treated  under  varying  con- 
ditions and  in  different  ways  at  certain  centres 
along  the  coast.  During  the  Taiping  rebellion 
this  salt  also  took  advantage  of  the  general 
disorganisation  of  transport  to  encroach  upon 
the  Hwai  monopoly  ;  it  went  far  up  the  Yang- 
tsze,  and  even  down  the  Poyang  Lake.  But 
nearly  a  century  back  I  find  "  Fychow  "  (Hwei- 
chou  Fu  in  An  Hwei)  already  consuming  the 
West  Cheh  article ;  this  exceptional  arrangement, 
which  perhaps  is  an  ancient  one,  is  easily  ex- 
plained by  taking  a  glance  on  a  good  map  at  the 
river  system,  and  reflecting  that  teas  from  the 
same  region  were  driven  in  1899-1900  by  likin 
exactions  from  Kewkiang  to  Ningpo.  There  is 
another  corner  of  An  Hwei  province  (Kwang-teh), 
and  also  a  wedge  of  Kiang  Si  (Kwang-sin) 
similarly  included  in  the  Two  Cheh  system,  but 
without  the  justification  in  either  case  of  a 
river  source.  All  Kiang  Su  south  of  the  Great 
River  is  included,  except  the  extensive  prefec- 
ture of  Nanking.  There  are  special  arrange- 
ments for  the  two  islands  of  Ting-hai  and 
Ch'ungming  (which  latter  produces  salt  of  its 
own  too),  into  which,  however,  I  need  not  enter 
here,  as  my  object  is  m.erely  to  sketch  general 
principles.  After  the  Japanese  war  and  the 
conseqvient  foreign  loans,  it  was  found  necessary 
here  and  elsewhere  to  increase  the  consumers' 
price  of  salt,  and  of  course  this  added  something 
to  the  general  feeling  of  discontent  and  unrest 
then  already  prevailing  in  China.  For  1899  I 
estimated  the  Two  Cheh  salt  revenue  at  1,000,000 
taels  ;    for  1911  it  was  nearer  3,500,000  taels. 

The   great   organisation   known   as   the   Two 
Hwai — that    is,    the    Northern    and    Southern 
17 


228  THE  SALT    GABELLE  [chap,  xl 

divisions  of  the  Hwai  River  (which,  owing  to 
Yellow  River  vagaries,  now  only  exists  in  a 
truncated  or  mouthless  condition) — is,  as  I 
stated  in  the  earlier  editions,  well  worthy  the 
attention  of  a  British  syndicate,  and,  indeed, 
forms  the  basis  of  Sir  Richard  Dane's  highly 
successful  reforms  now  astonishing  the  world. 
The  more  the  Yellow  River  (and  fresh  water 
generally)  can  be  kept  away,  the  better  for  the 
salt  flats  ;  and  the  Chinese  engineers  of  the 
Hwai  are  almost  as  expert  as  the  Dutch  manipu- 
lators of  the  Zuider  Zee  dykes  in  regulating  the 
levels  of  competing  waters.  It  will  be  seen 
from  any  tolerably  good  map  that  the  whole  of 
Kiang  Su  north  of  the  Great  River  and  east 
of  the  Canal  is  a  dreary  flat,  and  a  great  prtioon 
of  this  land  is  very  lightly  taxed,  owing  to  its 
brackishness,  and  to  its  inability  to  grow  other 
crops  than  rushes.  Here  lie  all  the  celebrated 
salt  flats  of  the  Hwai,  and  the  business  distinc- 
tions of  North  and  South,  whatever  they  origin- 
ally meant,  now  refer  chiefly  to  difference  of 
origin,  colour,  and  treatment  in  the  trade  article, 
together  with  capriciously  demarcated  respec- 
tive areas  of  consumption,  which  are  apt  to 
vary  a  little  when  one  or  the  other  kind  of 
salt  runs  short  in  its  own  "  preserve."  The 
Niichen  Tartars  and  the  Sung  dynasty,  nearly 
1,000  years  ago,  used  to  have  a  customs  and 
salt  station  on  the  Hwai.  Since  the  great 
Taiping  rebellion,  the  whole  system  has  been 
completely  reorganised  by  a  succession  of  very 
able  viceroys  ruling  at  Nanking.  Their  chief 
aim  was  how  to  regain  for  the  Hwai  interest  the 
area  lost  during  the  wars  and  rebellions  of 
1855-65,  and  how  to  establish  an  Ausgleich,  or 
modus  Vivendi,  with  the  immense  salt-well  expor- 
tation from  Sz  Ch'wan,  so  as  to  leave  the  latter 
a  fair   share   of  the   consumers'  ground   which 


A.D.  1900-1910]  SIR   RICHARD    DANE    AGAIN  229 

it  rescued  from  the  miseries  of  "  insipid  food  " 
during  the  long  Taiping  anarchy ;  and  so  as  at 
the  same  time  to  arrange  that  the  relative 
prices  of  the  rival  salts  should  not  be  too  high 
for  the  indigent  people,  or  too  lightly  taxed  to 
admit  of  a  substantial  revenue  ;  and  also  that 
the  general  revenue  systems  of  the  three  great 
Yang-tsze  compound  states- — Sz  Ch'wan,  the 
Two  Hu,  and  the  Two  Kiang  (half  the  area 
and  half  the  population  of  all  China  Proper) — 
should  be  sufficiently  elastic  to  provide  the  usual 
remittances  for  Peking,  and  for  the  support  of 
their  own  several  armies,  navies,  and  arsenals. 
In  accordance  wdth  this  complicated  arrange- 
ment, the  Governors  of  the  Hu  Peh,  Hu  Nan 
(Two  Hu) ;  Kiang  Su,  Kiang  Si,  and  An  Hwei 
("  Two  "  Kiang)  ;  and  Ho  Nan  had  no  say  at 
all  in  "  high  policy "  questions  of  salt  ;  the 
whole  gabelle  was  under  the  administrative 
control  of  a  First  Class  Commissary  at  Yang- 
chow,  who  again  was  in  Manchu  times  under  the 
supreme  "  diplomatic  "  and  (in  this  case  rather 
more  than)  nominal  supervision  of  the  Viceroy 
at  Nanking;  this  latter  was  de  facto,  but  not 
de  jure,  in  regular  consultation  with  the  Viceroy 
at  Wuch'ang  (Hankow)  in  matters  affecting  the 
Ausgleich.  Each  of  the  above  six  provinces 
(except  An  Hwei  which  had  none,  and  Kiang 
Su  which  had  two)  had  a  Second  Class  Commis- 
sary ;  and  there  are  thirty-four  subordinates, 
but  all  attached  to  headquarters  alone.  Thus 
each  province  (except  An  Hwei,  which  is  quite 
close  to  both  Yangehow  and  Nanking)  has  an 
imperial  accountant  for  purposes  of  local  finance, 
but  no  control  over  distribution.  The  great 
central  depot  for  stored  salt  is  Icheng,  between 
Chinkiang  and  Nanking.  Of  course  all  the  above 
takes  no  account  of  Sir  R.  Dane's  reforms, 
under  the  Republic,  of  which  more  anon. 


230  THE   SALT   GABELLE  [chap,  xi 

It  would  weary  the  reader  were  I  to  state  the 
names  of  each  producing  "  yard  "  ;  the  pecuhar 
system  of  land  taxation  modified  to  suit  the 
producing  districts  ;  the  way  "  warrants  "  are 
issued  to  speculators,  salt  is  weighed  out,  gross 
and  tare  distinguished,  order  of  precedence  in 
sales  arranged,  dues,  likin,  and  other  charges 
apportioned,  and  so  on.  As  the  merchants  who 
practically  farm  the  industry  "  offered  as  bene- 
volences "  8,000,000  taels  during  the  period 
1880-1900,  over  and  above  the  sums  which  the 
business  was  bound  under  regulation  to  yield- — 
in  other  words,  as  the  Government  has  dared 
to  "  squeeze "  an  average  of  400,000  taels  a 
year  besides  its  regular  income  of  5,000,000  or 
6,000,000  taels  (in  1911  nearer  10,000,000  taels) 
< — it  may  well  be  imagined  that  the  wealthy 
owners  of  *'  perpetual  warrants "  must  have 
made  a  large  profit.  As  many  distinguished 
families  used  to  invest  in  this  syndicate,  just  as 
we  Europeans  invest  in  Consols  or  Rands,  there 
was,  of  course,  a  universal  conspiracy  not  to 
disclose  to  outsiders  the  real  profits  ;  and,  as 
the  Viceroys  at  Nanking  had  to  defend  the 
interests  of  their  provinces  against  Peking 
rapacity,  such  profits  and  revenues  as  were  dis- 
closed to  them  by  their  subordinates  beyond  the 
regular  figures  never  reached  the  Peking  Board's 
ears  officially.  Therefore,  of  course,  I  could  not 
in  1900  prove  by  documentary  evidence  what 
everyone  knew,  and  what  Sir  R.  Dane  has 
proved,  namely,  that  this  great  organisation  is 
capable  of  great  and  beneficial  developments  in 
honest  hands. 

Hwai  salt,  of  two  main  kinds,  is  consumed  in 
those  very  limited  parts  of  Kiang  Su  south  of 
the  Yang-tsze  not  already  described  as  appro- 
priated to  the  Two  Cheh  trade  ;  in  all  Kiang  Su 
north  of  the  Yang-tsze,  except  the  wedge  served 


A.D.  1132-1900]  INTERESTING  SALT  WELLS     231 

by  Shan  Tung  ;  in  all  An  Hwei,  except  the  two 
corners  also  above  mentioned,  and  except  also 
in  one  district  (Suli-chou)  in  the  extreme  north 
not  drained  by  the  ITwai  River,  and  served 
from  Shan  Tung  ;  in  that  south-east  corner  of 
Ho  Nan  which  is  drained  by  the  head  waters 
of  the  Hwai  River  ;  in  all  Kiang  Si,  except  the 
corners  served  by  the  Two  Kwang  and  Two 
Cheh  systems  ;  in  all  Hu  Peh,  except  (a)  the 
extreme  south-west  corner,  where  no  navigable 
stream  communicates  with  the  Yang-tsze  ;  and 
(b)  (to  a  limited  extent,  but  not  as  a  trade) 
even  in  those  districts  of  the  same  corner  which 
have  such  navigable  communication  ;  also  (c) 
only  concurrently,  since  1870,  with  Sz  Ch'wan 
salt  in  the  six  prefectures  west  of  the  Han  River ; 
and  (d)  subject  to  some  tolerated  encroach- 
ments of  local  well-salt  in  the  extreme  north- 
west. It  is  also  consum.ed  in  all  Hu  Nan, 
except  the  parts  appropriated  to  Canton  salt ; 
and  except  in  the  extrem.e  north,  where,  since 
1870,  it  has  run  concurrently  with  Sz  Ch'wan 
salt ;  finally,  in  the  four  eastern  prefectures  of 
Kwei  Chou,  these  being  drained  by  the  head 
waters  of  the  Hu  Nan  rivers.  In  a  word,  Hwai 
salt  serves  nearly  the  whole  Valley  of  the  Yang- 
tsze,  up  to  the  gorges  and  the  mountains. 

The  great  Sz  Ch'wan  salt  industry,  first 
organised  in  1132,  is  totally  different  from  all 
those  described,  and  the  brine  is  extracted  from 
very  deep  Artesian  wells,  which  also  produce  un- 
limited quantities  of  hydrogen  gas,  thus  always 
gratuitously  at  hand  as  fuel  for  treating  the  salt ; 
in  some  cases  speculators  distribute  this  fuel, 
like  our  coal  gas,  in  long  bamboo  pipes. ^     The 

^  I  have  frequently  described  these  wells  at  length,  but  perhaps 

the  condensed  account  given  in  Chambers's  Journal  for  1896  is 

^the   most   accessible   to   European   readers,   though   since   then 

several  enterprising  travellers  have  given  further  and  perhaps 

more  up-to-date  descriptions. 


232  THE  SALT   GABELLE  [chap,  xi 

interests   involved  are  almost  as  great  as  in  the 
case  of  the  Two  Ilwai,  and  the  secrecy  observed 
{i.e.   beyond   the   stereotyped   official   point)   is 
quite   as   impenetrable   to   those   not    "  in   the 
swim."     Yet  there  is  only  a  Second  Class  Com- 
missary in  charge,  with  seven  subordinates ;  but 
in  Manchu  times  the  Viceroy,  who  had  nominal 
supervision  of  the  whole,  exercised  a  much  more 
direct  controlling  influence  over  the  well-salt  than 
did  even  his  sea-salt  colleague  at  Nanking,  with 
whom,  as  with  the  Viceroy  at  Wu-ch'ang  (Han- 
kow), he  had  to  fight  out  his  financial  battles. 
In  wandering  over  the  provinces  of  Sz  Ch'wan, 
Kwei  Chou,   and  Hu  Peh,   I  had  good   oppor- 
tunities for  studying  the  working  of  this  wonder- 
ful industry.     In  many  places  the  salt,  especi- 
ally when  of  the  hard  kind  like  blocks  of  stone, 
is  practically  small  money,  and  its  retail  value 
varies  unerringly  so  many  fractions  of  a  farthing 
per  pound  according  to  the  freight  rates  of  boats 
in   demand,    and  the   number   of  miles   coolies 
have  to   walk.     A  lost  traveller   could   almost 
grope   his   way   about   the   country   by   simply 
asking  the  retail  price  of  salt  at  each  village  and 
at  the  next  one  in  any  direction.     The  waste  of 
fuel,  of  human  and  beast  labour,  of  time,  and  of 
patience  is  of  course  gigantic,  but  it  might  have 
serious  effects  upon  the  popular  economy  of  the 
province  were  machinery  suddenly  introduced, 
carriage  cheapened,    and    strict  honesty  incon- 
tinently insisted  upon.*     The  nominal  yield  in 
taxes  to  the   Government   was   in   1899   about 
2,000,000  taels  a  year  on  salt  taken  out  of  5,000 
Artesian  wells  actually  working  (over  8,000  in 
existence).     Probably  10,000,000  taels  would  be 
nearer  the  mark  for  1911,  subject,  of  course,  to 
damage  done  to  trade  by  revolutions  and  rebel- 

^  The  Germans,  I  understand,  recently  obtained  a  contract  for' 
an  Electric  Power  Plant,  but  it  was  annulled. 


A.D.  1350-1890]  TIBETAN    SALT  233 

lions.  The  reason  there  are  so  few  officials  in 
charge  is  that  large  stocks,  which  are  ignored 
by  the  administration  when  they  reach  the 
middleman's  hands,  can  only  travel  by  water  ; 
and  the  water-ways  are  few,  shut  in,  uncon- 
nected by  canals,  and  easily  controlled.  There 
is  really,  as  I  pointed  out  (p.  168)  when  I  spoke 
of  the  three  great  trade  drainage  areas  of  China, 
only  one  great  exit  eastwards  from  Sz  Ch'wan, 
as  there  is  only  one  from  Kwang  Si.  The  salt 
service  of  course  covers  the  whole  of  Sz  Ch'wan 
province,  and  (concurrently  with  or  indepen- 
dently of  the  Hwai  salt)  those  parts  of  Hu  Nan 
and  Hu  Peh  above  specified;  all  Kwei  Chou 
province,  except  the  eastern  area  reserved  to 
the  Hwai  system  of  Hu  Nan,  and  the  corner 
appropriated  to  Canton  as  explained  ;  and  the 
north  wedge  of  Yiin  Nan  which  communicates  via 
Lao-wa  T'an  with  the  highest  navigable  part  of 
the  Yang-tsze.  The  Governors  of  Yiin  Nan  and 
Kwei  Chou  had  (and  perhaps  have)  each  nominal 
supervisory  control  in  their  own  provinces ;  but 
there  was  no  Kwei  Chou  staff  at  all,  and  no  Yiin 
Nan  staff  for  this  particular  salt ;  the  Yiin  Nan 
officials  were  there  for  the  management  of  quite 
another  branch,  now  to  be  separately  described. 
As  to  Tibet,  which  receives  from  Sz  Ch'wan 
endless  human  caravans  of  tea  by  way  of  Ta- 
tsien-lu  and  Kwan  Hien,  I  presume  it  must  also 
take  some  of  the  Sz  Ch'wan  salt ;  if  it  does,  I 
cannot  find  trace  of  it,  though  I  see  that  in  1180 
trade  with  certain  "  Tibetoid "  tribes  was 
sanctioned.  There  are  some  very  ancient  wells 
close  to  Tibet  in  the  extreme  west  near  Ya-chou 
(the  great  entrepot  of  the  tea  trade  with  the 
Tibetan  tribes)  which  were  working  570  years 
ago  ;  but  as  Tibet  is  a  brackish  and  nitrous 
country  throughout,  I  expect  it  supplies  itself, 
and  needs  no  Chinese  salt :  in  fact  Tibet  used  to 


234  THE   SALT   GABELLE  [chap,  xi 

supply  Nepaul  with  salt  and  butter  in  exchange 
for  grain,  and  no  doubt  does  so  still.  In  any 
case  plentiful  supplies  for  the  northern  frontier 
of  Tibet  can  be  obtained  from  Mien-chu  city  in 
Sz  Ch'wan. 

In  the  days,  over  a  thousand  years  ago,  when 
a  Shan  empire  ruled  in  Yiin  Nan,  there  was 
already  mention  of  the  local  Black  Salt-wells, 
and  in  Kublai  Khan's  time  (thirteenth  century) 
there  is  frequent  allusion  to  trouble  with  the 
"  barbarians  at  the  salt  wells."  At  the  com- 
mencemicnt  of  the  Manchu  dynasty,  their  hench- 
man, the  Chinese  satrap  Wu  San-kwei,  was 
allowed  to  increase  the  salt  dues  for  a  time  in 
order  to  pay  his  Yiin  Nan  troops;  and  in  our 
own  days  (1864-1874)  the  Panthay  Mussul- 
mans held  profitable  possession  in  their  turn. 
Except  in  the  north  corner  of  the  province, 
devoted  to  the  Sz  Ch'wan  m.onopoly,  Yiin  Nan 
salt  is  free  all  over  the  province  (with  the  further 
exception  of  the  corner  appropriated  to  Canton) 
after  it  has  been  purchased  from  the  private 
proprietors  of  the  wells  and  has  paid  Govern- 
ment dues  ;  unde^  the  Manchus  a  Second  Class 
Commissary  and  twelve  subordinates  used  to 
manage  the  business,  and  the  annual  yield  to 
government  account  was  about  500,000  taels  ; 
in  1911  nearer  1,000,000  taels.  Towards  the 
Burm.ese  and  French  frontiers- — at  Muang-u  for 
instance— there  are  a  few  other  unimportant 
wells,  but  the  population  there  is  too  scant  and 
"  barbarian  "  for  Chinese  officials  to  make  much 
out  of  that  or  any  other  industry,  as  we  have 
seen  under  the  heads  of  Momein  and  Sz-mao 
trade  (pp.  173,  174). 

We  have  now  nothing  left  to  consider  but  Old 
China,  all  the  salt  systems  above  described 
dating  subsequently  to  the  beginning  of  our 
era,  at  least   so   far   as  any  known  official  or- 


B.C.  200-A.D.  19C0]         MONGOL    SALT  235 

ganisation  of  them  is  concerned.  In  the  earher 
editions  I  left  Manchuria  out  of  consideration 
altogether,  as  the  salt  revenue  collected  there 
in  the  twelfth  century  by  the  Niichen  officials 
(twelfth  century)  never  amounted  to  much  ;  and 
the  same  could  be  said  of  Manchu  times,  previous 
to  the  reforms  of  the  Viceroy  of  Manchuria, 
Ikotanga,  twenty  years  ago :  indeed,  until  1887 
salt  was  free  altogether;  but  even  in  Niichen 
and  Mongol  times  (1150-1350)  there  was  some 
official  control  of  the  Liao-yang  salt  flats ;  how- 
ever, I  find  that  under  pressure  of  "Boxer" 
legacies  and  exigencies  a  very  large  official  con- 
sumption is  now  recognised,  as  to  which  more 
further  on.  It  is  still  hardly  necessary  to  do 
more  than,  as  before  in  1900,  merely  mention 
Mongolia,  which  produced  in  Manchu  times  no 
revenue  to  the  Central  Government  of  any 
kind,  salt  or  otherwise;  and,  now  that  Outer 
Mongolia  is  partly  "independent,"  cannot  well 
fall  under  Sir  Richard  Dane's  reforming  hand. 
There  is,  however,  a  Mongol-owned  salt  lake, 
called  Ghilen-tai,  in  the  Desert  to  the  west  of 
the  Alashan  Mountains,  which  presumably  still 
supplies  the  v/ants  of  what  may  be  called  the 
Great  North  Road,  from  the  Yellow  River  at 
Baotu,  or  at  Tokto,  where  it  is  discharged  from 
boats  and  carried  east  right  away  to  Kalgan 
and  Siian-hwa  north  of  Peking  ;  and  also  in  the 
other  direction  north-west  to  Uliassutai.  Som^e 
restraint  had  to  be  placed  upon  this  Mongol 
salt,  which  was  almost  free  in  Kan  Suh,  so  as 
to  prevent  encroachm.ent  upon  the  Shan  Si 
system.  It  is  by  no  means  improbable  that 
this  Lake  Ghilen  is  the  identical  place  men- 
tioned in  200  B.C.,  and  stated  to  be  near  modern 
Lan-chou,  where  the  inhabitants,  as  I  have 
stated  in  the  third  chapter,  throve  famously  in 
the   salt   and   iron   trade.     The   Piebald   Horse 


236  THE   SALT   GABELLE  [chap,  xi 

Pond  salt  (Hwa-ma  Ch'i)  from  a  place  just  south 
of  the  Great  Wall,  where  the  Kan  Suh  and 
Shen  Si  frontiers  join,  has  the  run  of  the  greater 
part  of  Kan  Suh,  and  also  part  of  Shen  Si, 
concurrently  with  Mongol  salt ;  but  the  entire 
revenues  derived  from  both  the  above  industries 
are  exceedingly  small ;  so  much  so,  that  the 
management  of  them  was  left  to  two  executive 
taotais  in  Kan  Suh  and  Shen  Si,  of  course  in 
Manchu  times  subject  to  the  Viceroy.  There 
are  also  some  wells  in  South  Kan  Suh,  probably 
geologically  connected  with  those  of  Sz  Ch'wan  : 
however,  the  whole  of  the  salt  service  super- 
ficially described  in  this  paragraph  rather  sur- 
rounds than  belongs  to  Old  China,  which  is 
thus  hemmed  in  on  all  sides  by  areas  supplied 
from  wells  or  flats  dating  from  some  tim^e  subse- 
quent to  our  era.  It  is  well  to  note  once  more 
how  every  subject,  be  it  trade,  language,  salt, 
or  geography,  tends  to  accentuate  this  one 
salient  point^ — that  the  Yellow  race  or  Chinese 
are  essentially  a  Yellow  River  people,  and  that 
the  disastrous  irregularities  of  that  stream  are 
rightly  termed  "  China's  Sorrow "  in  a  very 
special  and  literal  sense.  At  the  same  time  it 
must  not  be  supposed  that  the  term  "  Yellow  " 
languages  (first  used,  I  believe,  by  myself), 
Yellow  race.  Yellow  peril,  and  so  on  has  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  Yellow  River :  it  refers  to 
the  human  complexion. 

The  oldest  salt  industry  of  all  is,  as  we  might 
expect,  that  of  Shan  Tung  :  there  is  no  salt 
to  speak  of  on  the  peninsula  itself ;  it  is  all 
derived  from  coast  places  north  and  south  of  it, 
round  about  the  present  mouth  of  the  Yellow 
River,  and  about  the  former  German  "  sphere  " 
of  Kiao  Chou,  now  in  Japanese  keeping.  What 
with  the  Grand  Canal,  the  River  Wei  (from  Wei- 
hwei  city,  not  to  be  confused  with  the  Wei  of 


A.D.  1180-1912]      CHIH    LI    SALT    FINANCE      237 

Shen  Si,  pp.  14,  76),  and  the  canals  connecting  the 
various  Yellow  River  beds,  Shan  Tung  has 
unrivalled  facilities  for  distribution,  and,  as 
might  be  anticipated,  consumes  not  one  pound 
of  any  salt  but  its  own.  The  trade  is  di- 
vided into  two  branches,  called  respectively  the 
"  warrant  system  "  and  the  "  north  and  south 
freights,"  the  latter  being  half  in  official  hands 
and  half  in  mercantile,  the  two  working  to- 
gether. The  warrants  seem  to  run  over  the 
mountainous  peninsula  and  its  base  down  to 
the  extreme  south  frontiers.  The  north  freights 
evidently  refer  to  Shan  Tung  itself,  or  the 
greater  part  of  it ;  the  southern  freights  to  the 
extraneous  parts  of  Ho  Nan,  Kiang  Su,  and  An 
Hwei.  The  whole  administration  is  under  a 
First  Class  Commissary  and  thirteen  subordin- 
ates, of  course  under  the  nominal  supervision 
in  Manchu  times  of  the  Governor.  Up  to  1837 
the  centre  of  the  Commissary's  operations  was 
Tientsin,  which  I  suppose  means  that  the  Viceroy 
of  Chih  Li  had  until  then  general  supervision 
over  two  commissaries  ;  but  the  distance  was 
found  inconvenient,  and  so  in  that  year  the 
Governor  was  made  supreme  responsible  chief 
over  his  own  commissary.  I  notice  that  the 
Mongol  dynasty  made  several  similar  changes 
(1260-1338),  and  recast  more  than  once  the 
organisation  established  by  the  Sung  house  in 
1181.  I  have  no  doubt  the  vagaries  of  the 
Yellow  River  often  decided  to  which  adminis- 
tration this  or  that  part  of  the  distribution 
service  should  belong.  After  the  Japanese  war 
of  1894-5  the  retail  price  of  salt  was  raised 
here,  as  elsewhere,  and  efforts  were  made  to  make 
the  dues  account  contribute  more  money  to  the 
public  chest.  Perhaps  the  total  credited  to  the 
Government  would  in  1899  have  reached  400,000 
taels :    in    1911    nearer    4,000,000    taels' — if   we 


238  THE   SALT   GABELLE  [chap,  xi 

include  the  gains  credited  to  all  provinces  in 
which  Shan  Tung  salt  circulated. 

In  the  chapter  on  "  Early  Trade  Notions  "  it 
was  mentioned  how  tradition  says  an  ancient 
statesman  once  utilised  the  charms  of  woman  as  a 
lure  to  catch  the  gold  of  strangers.  This  man, 
usually  known  by  his  popular  name  Kwan  Chung 
(700-645  B.C.),  was  premier  of  the  state  of  Ts'i 
(Shan  Tung),  whose  salt  business  we  are  now 
discussing  ;  he  was  also  the  first  to  conceive 
the  notion  of  a  Government  monopoly  in  salt 
and  iron,  based  upon  an  average  annual  mini- 
mum consumption  per  individual  of  30  lbs.  of 
salt,  and  upon  the  indispensability  of  plough- 
shares, axes,  pans,  knives,  and  needles.  But 
the  Sang  Hung-yang  mentioned  at  the  head  of 
this  chapter,  a  man  celebrated  for  his  mental 
arithmetic,  was  the  first  to  tax  salt  en  route. 
Thus  it  is  plain  other  people  knew  how  to  make 
money  out  of  salt  and  iron  besides,  and  maybe 
before,  the  men  of  the  Ordos  Desert.  The  wealth 
thus  brought  to  one  vassal  state  was  shared  by 
the  feudatory  powers  in  the  vicinity,  who  soon 
took  to  imitating  so  lucrative  a  policy.  It  was 
evidently  under  this  first  stimulus  that  the  Sz 
Ch'wan  salt  wells  were  discovered  (330  B.C.), 
and  possibly  the  Ghilen-tai  industry  also  :  a 
large  export  to  the  steppes  of  the  Hiung-nu 
grew  up,  and  to  those  states  as  well  which 
were  dependent  upon  Ts'i  for  their  salt  supply. 
By  the  time  the  First  Emperor  came  into 
power  (B.C.  220),  the  salt  and  iron  revenues 
of  China  had  increased  twenty-fold.  Ever 
since  those  days  the  Shan  Tung  salt  admini- 
stration has  had  a  steady  history,  but  perhaps 
rather  as  an  appendage  of  the  one  about  to 
be  described  than  as  a  separate  organisation  of 
its  own. 

The  "Ch'ang-lu,"  or  Long  Rush  or  Reed  system, 


A.D.  lSOO-1900]  HISTORICAL  DEVELOPMENTS  239 

derives  its  name  from  the  city  Ts'ang  Chou,'  on 
the  Grand  Canal  (south  of  Tientsin),  once  so 
called.  In  1285  Kublai  Khan  "  once  more 
divided  the  Ho-kien  (Chih  Li)  and  Shan  Tung 
interests,"  which,  as  above  explained,  are  really 
one  in  working  principle.  Passing  to  our  own 
days,  we  find  in  1900  a  First  Class  Commissary 
at  Tientsin,  with  sixteen  subordinates,  and  the 
Viceroy  (who  until  about  1870  resided  at  the 
provincial  capital  of  Pao-ting)  had  in  Manchu 
times  nominal  supervision.  The  yield  was  about 
500,000  taels  a  year  ;  but  here  again  the  mer- 
chants were  viewed  as  a  milch  cow,  being  second 
only  to  the  Hwai  traders  in  point  of  yielding 
capacity,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  "  loyal  benevo- 
lences "  which  were  frequently  exacted,  and  the 
fact  that  nearer  8,000,000  taels  were  extracted 
in  1911.  One  of  the  latest  Manchu  Govern- 
ment plans  for  raising  money  was  to  issue 
"  manifest  faith  "  bonds,  repayable  after  a  term 
of  years,  and  bearing  interest ;  of  course  all 
loyal  officials  and  salt  merchants  were  expected 
to  subscribe  ;  naturally  their  exuberant  loyalty 
was  too  much  for  them,  and  most  of  them 
"  begged  not  to  receive  interest,"  and  even  "  pro- 
tested that  they  did  not  w^ant  even  the  capital  "  ; 
a  fortiori  they  did  not  expect  ".recognition  in  the 
shape  of  rank."  The  price  of  salt  had  been 
thrice  raised,  one  centime  a  kilo  since  1895,  and 
about  100,000  taels  were  added  by  the  above 
benevolence  to  the  500,000  previously  yielded. 
The  service  (speaking  of  sixteen  years  ago)  in- 
cludes all  Chih  Li,  except  those  parts  north 
of  the  innermost  Great  Wall,  which  use  Ghilen- 
tai  salt ;  and  there  are  special  arrangements 
for  the  city  of  Peking.  It  also  covers  the 
whole  plain  of  Ho  Nan,  except  the  south 
wedge  belonging  to  the   Hwai   system,   i.e.  the 

^  Now  that  chou  are  abolished,  Ts'ang  Men, 


240  THE   SALT   GABELLE  [chap,  xi 

level  tract  bounded  on  the  west  by  the  base 
of  the  mountainous  triangle  served  by  Shan  Si 
salt,  and  on  the  east  by  An  Hwei,  Kiang  Su, 
and  the  small  Ho  Nan  wedge  supplied  by  Shan 
Tung  salt.  Thus  Ho  Nan  is  rent  by  many  rival 
salt  masters,  but  in  Manchu  times  had  none  the 
less  a  Second  Class  Commissary  of  her  own  to 
look  after  both  her  grain  and  salt  interests,  and 
to  arrange  accounts.  The  harassed  people  in 
the  north  of  China,  alternately  under  Tartar 
and  Chinese  rulers  in  the  remote  past,  never 
took  kindly  to  the  taxation  of  salt,  which  was 
every  now  and  then  abolished,  and  anon  re- 
established, for  various  reasons,  by  dynasty 
after  dynasty;  but  there  is  specific  mention 
of  salt-works  near  Tientsin  when  North  and 
South  China  became  reunited  in  the  seventh 
century  ;  and  a  century  after  that  the  great 
financier  Liu  Yen  so  developed  the  Government 
monopoly  in  salt  that  it  produced  half  the 
total  revenues  of  the  empire.  It  may  be  men- 
tioned that  the  "  Long  Reeds  "  of  the  locality 
bearing  that  name  are  useful  as  fuel  for  boiling 
the  salt. 

There  now  only  remains  to  be  examined  the 
very  ancient  Shan  Si  salt  organisation  at  present 
known  as  Ho-tung  or  "  East  of  the  (Yellow) 
River."  The  extreme  west  of  China  used  to 
consume  this  lake  salt  until  the  Sz  Ch'wan  wells 
were  discovered,  and  it  remained  a  Government 
monopoly  until  a.d.  506,  when  the  Tungusic 
dynasty  then  ruling  North  China  threw  open  to 
free  exploitation  a  number  of  the  works.  In  924 
the  Turkish  reigning  house  representing  Central 
China  placed  an  official  taxing  superintendent 
over  the  official  ponds  of  An-yih  and  Kiai  city — 
names  which  exist  to  this  day- — near  what  is 
known  as  the  Lake  of  Kiai.  After  the  expulsion 
of  the  Tartars,  the  Sung  dynasty  placed  eighteen 


A.D.  1000-1900]        MODERN    REFORMS  241 

of  the  marshes  under  Government  control.  In 
1010  and  1116  the  ''  red  salt "  of  this  locality  is 
spoken  of  officially.  In  1178  the  Sung  dynasty, 
driven  south,  prohibited  the  import  of  Shan  Si 
salt  from  the  Niichen  dominions  into  Ho  Nan. 
Kublai  Khan's  villainous  "  Saracen  "  (Ouigour) 
adviser  Achmac,  mentioned  by  Marco  Polo, 
increased  the  dues  very  heavily  ;  but  still  a  few 
ponds  were  left  free  to  the  public.  The  Manchus 
merged  the  salt  dues  in  some  districts  into  the 
land-tax,  so  that  wherever  this  took  place  the 
people  became  entitled  to  free  salt.  In  1846 
the  heavy  cost  of  keeping  the  works  in  repair 
led  the  Government  to  consider  once  more  the 
advisability  of  putting  them  up  to  public  auction. 
The  result  of  all  this  was  that  Shan  Si  salt  had 
only  a  very  limited  circulation  in  that  province ; 
but  it  supplied,  and  still  doubtless  supplies,  all  the 
western  half  of  Ho  Nan- — south  of  the  Yellow 
River  only- — and  the  valley  of  the  River  Wei 
in  Shen  Si :  this  arrangement  bringing  it  near 
the  head  waters  of  the  River  Han,  precautions 
have  to  be  taken  to  keep  it  out  of  the  Hwai 
preserves.  There  was  a  Second  Class  Com- 
missary for  the  province,  who  in  Manchu  times 
resided  at  P'u-chou  in  the  extreme  south,  far 
away  from  his  nominal  superior,  the  Governor 
at  T'^ai-yuan ;  and  he  had  eight  subordinates. 
The  revenue  in  1900  was  about  half  a  million 
taels,  and  there  are  perhaps  thirty  districts  pos- 
sessing salt  ponds ;  so  that  the  whole  region 
must  be  very  sahne.  For  1911  3,000,000  taels 
would  be  nearer  the  mark. 

In  1904  the  pressure  of  indemnities  became  so 
great  that  the  late  Sir  Robert  Hart  proposed  a 
scheme  for  increasing  the  land-tax  on  a  uniform 
scale  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of 
China ;  but  this  fell  through,  chiefly  through  the 
opposition  of  the  viceroys  Wei  Kwang-t'ao  and 


242  THE   SALT   GABELLE  [chap,  xi 

Chang  Chi-tung.  Simultaneously  the  (now  well- 
known  mercantile)  statesman  Chang  Kien  sub- 
mitted a  scheme  for  reorganising  the  Salt 
Gabelle.  Year  after  year  the  "  three  good  vice- 
roys," in  drawing  up  their  drastic  schemes  of 
general  reform,  gradually  acceded  to  proposals 
for  raising  the  price  of  salt  throughout  the 
Empire  at  the  rate  of  so  many  copper  cash  the 
Chinese  pound ;  in  such  wise  that,  although 
no  one  has  yet  dared  to  touch  the  land-tax,  by 
degrees  everyone  has  come  round  to  view  with 
equanimity  considerable  additions  to  the  price 
of  salt,  which,  after  all,  is  a  fleeting  form  of  Mr. 
Wemmick's  "personal  property"  and  not  a 
fixture  in  the  soil  like  the  land-tax  ;  which  last, 
moreover,  the  Emperor  K'ang-hi  had  sworn  by 
the  nine  gods,  on  behalf  of  the  proud  house  then 
reigning,  "  never  to  tax  no  more." 

Accordingly  we  find  the  same  Chang  Kien 
called  upon  by  Yiian  Shi-k'ai  (when  summoned 
to  Peking  late  in  1911  to  save  the  dynasty)  to 
serve  as  Minister  of  Trade  and  Agriculture  ;  and 
a  little  later,  when  the  Republic  was  temporarily 
organised  at  Nanking,  Chang  Kien  was  chair- 
man of  the  first  conventicle  there ;  he  held  many 
trusted  posts  during  the  first  three  years  of  Yiian's 
presidency ;  but  in  1915  (scenting  danger)  applied 
unsuccessfully  during  August  to  go  to  the  so- 
called  "Watercourse  Conferences"  in  America. 
He  was  appointed  one  of  the  "  Four  Cronies  " 
when  Yiian  declared  himself  Emperor,  but  was 
conveniently  attacked  by  a  serious  diplomatic 
malady,  disappeared  into  space,  and  has  hidden 
himself  away  (officially)  ever  since.  In  1913  he 
published  his  scheme  of  Salt  Reform,  which  has 
also  been  translated  and  published  in  English ; 
this  was  the  precursor  to  an  invitation  to  Sir 
Richard  Dane  (form.erly  Inspector-General  of 
Excise  and  Salt  in  India)  to  take  over  the  job, 


A.D.  1908-1916]  KING  STORK  AND  KING  LOG    248 

which  has  since  been  done  with  such  marvellons 
success  that  the  Salt  Revenue  in  the  short  space 
of  three  years  has  ah-eady  begun  to  rival  the 
Foreign  Maritime  Customs  Revenue  in  bulk  and 
certainty.  It  may  here  be  mentioned  paren- 
thetically that,  previous  to  the  death  of  the 
Dowager  and  the  Emperor  in  1908,  a  Chinese 
mission  had  already  been  sent  to  India  to  inquire 
into  the  nature  of  the  Salt  Administration  there. 
Sir  Richard  Dane,  or  the  Chinese  Administra- 
tion, will  no  doubt  from  time  to  time  publish 
reports  showing  exactly  how  far  he  has  dealt 
with  each  of  the  eleven  systems,  which  are 
here  illustrated  more  clearly  by  a  map ;  how 
far  he  has  left  the  cadres  (so  to  speak)  of  the 
'personnel  untouched  in  Chinese  hands ;  and  so 
on.  Meanwhile  it  may  be  stated  that  the  official 
Chinese  Government  report  for  1911,  the  last 
year  of  the  Manchu  Empire,  published  the  fol- 
lowing list  of  the  amounts  consumed  and  taxed 
during  that  year  : — 


The 


Two  Kwang  system 

1,954,821  cwts.  (of  133^   lb.) 

Fuh  Kien  system 

772,000       „ 

Two  Cheh  system 

1,700,620       „ 

„     Hwai  system 

4,896,888       „ 

Sz  Ch'wan  system 

5,508,600       „ 

Yiin  Nan  system 

512,300       „ 

Manchuria  system 

3,840,000       „ 

Mongol-Kan  Suh  system 

22,781 

Shan  Tung  system      . 

2,095,744       „ 

Ch'ang-lu  (Chih  Li)  system 

.     3,974,000       „ 

Ho-tung  (Shan  Si)  system 

1,589,400       „ 
26,867,154 

Apart  from  corrupt  and  intentional  juggling 
with  figures,  the  above  total  does  not  mean 
very  much  in  point  of  accuracy,  for  each  place 
has  (or  had)  its  own  special  arrangements  for 
taxes,  allowances,  perquisites,  etc.,  which  often 
meant  that  one  cwt.  nominal  was  in  reality  as 
18 


244  THE   SALT   GABELLE  [chap,  xi 

much  as  two  at  the  outstart  of  its  travels  from 
the  base  to  the  depots.  Still  less  do  the  estimates 
I  have  formed  above  of  the  increased  revenues 
from  salt  between  1899  and  1911  (based  on  the 
supposition  that  the  Government  would  extract 
an  average  of  two  taels  the  cwt.)  correspond 
place  by  place  with  the  irregular  reality.  Here, 
again,  local  custom  varies,  and  it  is  hopeless  to 
attempt  the  unravelling  of  exchanges,  propor- 
tions, relation  to  land-tax,  fees,  etc.,  etc.  The 
only  thing  is  to  wait  until  Sir  Richard  Dane 
gradually  rakes  in  all  hitherto  untouched 
systems,  introduces  intelligible  general  rules, 
and  straightens  out  the  whole  tangled  web. 
Meanwhile  we  cannot  be  far  wrong  in  cutting 
the  Gordian  knot  as  we  have  done  at,  say, 
53,000,000  taels;  for,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
budget  of  1913  drawn  up  by  the  Chinese  Minister 
of  Finance  bejore  King  Stork  in  the  shape  of 
Sir  Richard  Dane  had  replaced  King  Log  in 
the  shape  of  "  old  custom,"  put  down  the  esti- 
mated salt  revenue  at  $550,000,000,  one  Mexican 
dollar  and  a  half  being  (very  roughly)  estimated 
at  one  (government)  tael  for  the  purposes  of 
this  calculation. 


tHOW 


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MAP  TO  ILLUSTRATE 
CHAPTER  ON  SALT 


CHAPTER    XII 

LIKIN 

The  idea  of  this  now  notorious  tax  is  repeatedly 
said  to  have  been  conceived  in  1849-51  by  the 
taotai  Yao,  then  engaged  upon  certain  adminis- 
trative reform  schemes,  and  his  original  idea  was 
only  to  tax  tea  and  salt.  But  the  first  mention 
I  can  find  of  likin  in  standard  records  is  towards 
the  end  of  1852,  when,  during  tlie  incipient  Re- 
bellion, ten  provinces  were  called  upon  to  raise 
extra  funds,  and  Li  Hwei,  the  Governor  of  Shan 
Tung,  instituted  a  lifou,  to  be  contributed  by 
traders.  But  he  at  once  found  that  the  expenses 
of  collection  were  barely  covered  by  the  receipts. 
Both  the  above  compound  words  practically 
mean  a  "  percentage,"  or  rather  "  per  milage," 
as  it  is  reckoned  on  thousands  ;  not  necessarily 
one,  but  two  or  three  per  mille.  The  Governor 
Ha  Lin-yih  at  Hankow  about  this  time  instituted 
such  a  charge  in  his  province  in  order  to  pay 
the  troops  operating  there  against  the  Taipings. 
The  next  thing  heard  of  it  is  in  the  spring  of 
1854,  when  the  Governor-General  of  the  Two 
Kiang  reported  the  success  of  the  likilen,  or  per 
mille  *'  contribution,"  in  certain  tracts  drained 
by  what  is  known  as  the  Inner  Lower  River 
(north  of  and  parallel  with  the  Yang-tsze, 
between  the  Canal  and  the  sea),  and  suggested 
its  extension  to  other  provinces.  In  1855  there 
were   already   complaints    of   extortion   at   the 

246 


246  LIKIN  [chap,  xii 

dozen  or  so  of  stations  established  one  after  the 
other  below  Yangchow  on  the  Yang-tsze  River. 
In  Kan  Suh  province  the  new  levy  proved  so 
full  of  abuses  that  it  was  at  once  suspended  ; 
but  general  regulations  for  the  Empire  were 
none  the  less  drawn  up  by  the  Cabinet  Council 
in  that  year,  and  the  Board  of  Revenue  was 
officially  charged  with  the  duty  of  promulgating 
them  and  exercising  general  supervision.  Thus 
the  tax  is  an  imperial  one. 

In  the  summer  of  1856  the  late  Marquess 
Tseng's  celebrated  father,  Tseng  Kwoh-fan, 
then  in  the  field  against  the  Taipings,  applied 
unsuccessfully  for  permission  to  devote  all  or  a 
part  of  the  likin  collected  at  Shanghai  to  the 
support  of  the  armies  operating  against  the 
rebels  in  Kiang  Si ;  it  was  decided  that  the 
presence  of  foreigners  at  Shanghai  was  an  in- 
superable difficulty,  and  that,  in  any  case,  Kiang 
Su  had  a  prior  claim  over  Kiang  Si.  In  the 
absence  of  clearer  language,  it  seems  plain  that 
at  this  stage  the  Chinese  saw  full  well  how  far 
the  common-sense  interpretation  of  the  Nanking 
Treaty  was  an  obstacle,  and  that  they  would 
never  have  dared  to  place  a  likin  on  foreign 
goods  had  not  our  own  boneless  policy  stiffened 
them  up  to  it.  The  following  year,  on  the 
recommendation  of  the  Nanking  Viceroy  Iliang, 
the  Emperor  decided  against  the  idea  of  levying 
a  likin  over  and  above  the  duty  on  tobacco,  on 
the  ground  that  the  traders  would  be  liable  ^to 
vexatious  interference  at  every  place  they 
passed.  The  levy  is  here  described  as  an  "  un- 
fortunate necessity  "  ;  so  that  it  is  plain  that 
from  the  beginning  the  Chinese  recognised  its 
unconstitutional  nature.  In  1858  the  Governor 
of  Ho  Nan  reported  the  progress  in  his  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  new  idea,  and  was  warned  not  to 
allow  any  "  undue  harassing  "   of  the  persons 


A.D.  1858-1860]      DEVELOPMENT  OF  LIKIN      247 

charged  with  the  tax.  Meanwhile  the  Governor 
of  Hu  Nan  signified  his  desire  to  stop  the  further 
levy  of  likin  in  his  province,  as  being  found 
injurious  to  trade  :  the  Emperor's  answer  was 
ungraciously  evasive  :  "I  have  no  doubt  you 
understand  what  is  right  more  than  most  of 
them  ;  you  are  no  fool."  The  Nanking  Viceroy 
Ho  Kwei,  who  had  expressed  doubts  about  the 
wisdom  of  giving  encouragem.ents  for  "  con- 
tributions" charged  upon  foreign  goods  at 
Shanghai,  "  in  which  there  might  be  contra- 
band," was  told  by  the  Emperor  not  to  make 
too  much  fuss  about  iiiiaginary  difficulties,  but 
to  give  the  usual  rewards  ;■ — in  other  words,  to 
sell  titles  at  so  much  per  lump  sum  collected  ; 
which  confirms  the  notion  conveyed  by  the 
word  kiiefi, — that  the  levy  was  nominally  at 
first  a  voluntary  gift.  Mention  is  made  at  the 
same  time  of  likin  paid  at  Taku  by  Canton  and 
Foochow  junks  entering  the  Tientsin  River, 
and  of  likin  on  salt  at  Tientsin  for  Sengk'o- 
lints'in's  ("  Sam  CoUinson's  ")  army.  In  1859 
likin  was  newly  established  at  Chefoo,  it  having 
been  found  that  the  various  junks  were  begin- 
ning to  go  there  in  order  to  evade  the  charges 
at  Tientsin.  Orders  were  next  issued  to  charge 
likin  on  native  as  well  as  on  Indian  opium  in 
the  interior,  and  the  likin  per  pecul  on  foreign 
opium  was  fixed  at  Tls.  20,  in  addition  to  the 
Tls.  30  import  duty  ;  but  the  local  officials  were 
only  allowed  to  collect  the  former.  It  does  not 
here  appear  who  collected  the  latter,  but  I  suppose 
the  embryo  of  the  Foreign  Customs,  either  under 
Mr.  Wade  or  Mr.  H.  N.  Lay.  At  all  events,  it 
is  quite  clear  that  we  gave  ourselves  away  in 
the  Treaty  of  1858.  At  this  time  allusion  is 
made  to  likin  on  native  opium  grown  in  Yiin 
Nan,  "  where  foreign  opium  scarcely  exists." 
In   1860   a  collection  upon   trading  carts   and 


248  LI  KIN  [chap,  xn 

bullion  caravans  was  authorised  at  the  Shan-hai 
Kwan — ^the  gate  to  Manchuria^ — based  on  the 
same  rules  as  that  collection  made  at  Fak'umen 
on  the  Mongol  frontier  palisade  north  of  Mukden. 
Li  Han-chang,  elder  brother  of  Li  Hung-chang, 
was  entrusted  with  the  collection  of  likin  in 
Kiang  Si,  where  the  army  of  Liu  K'un-yih  was 
then  operating  successfully  against  the  rebels. 
Chungking  likin  to  the  amount  of  Tls.  10,000 
was  urgently  called  for  as  a  military  aid  from 
Sz  Ch'wan.  In  1861  efforts  were  made  to  keep 
open  the  main  Cheh  Kiang  roads,  then  harassed 
by  Taipings,  so  as  to  facilitate  the  collection  of 
likin  from  passing  traders.  The  belated  likin 
accounts  of  Kwang  Si  were  also  called  for,  and 
orders  were  given  to  rearrange  the  multifarious 
likin  charges  in  Kiang  Nan. 

The  above  precise  information  all  comes  from 
the  original  decrees  forming  the  basis  of  pub- 
lished Manchu  history,  and  I  have  thought  it 
well  to  quote  the  facts  chronologically,  in  order 
to  trace  the  historical  growth  of  likin,  which  in 
its  origin  may  be  defined  as  "  one  per  mille 
unwillingly  levied  under  stress  of  exceptional 
circumstances  upon  a  limited  number  of  luxuries 
in  transit."  Specific  mention  is  plainly  made  of 
collections  in  the  majority  of  the  provinces,  and 
it  is  evident  that  if  the  Chinese  Government 
has  subsequently  taken  an  ell,  it  is  largely  be- 
cause we  ourselves  tacitly  abandoned  inch  after 
inch  ;  at  the  same  time,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  we  are  partly  responsible  for  the  financial 
straits  which  have  necessitated  the  irregularity. 

Since  1861,  during  the  fifty  years'  nominal 
reign  of  the  three  boy  emperors  under  the 
tutelage  of  successive  Dowagers,  things  have 
gone  from  bad  to  worse.  We  are  all  familiar 
with  the  howl  of  despair  which  our  merchants 
and  consuls  have  raised  at  every  port,  and  have 


A.D.  1644-1904]  BIG  FISH  AND  LITTLE  FISH  249 

steadily  kept  up.  My  revered  old  chief,  Sir  Brooke 
Robertson,  at  Canton,  had,  as  stated, '  a  well-defined 
if  mistaken  policy,  and  he  was  too  strong  a 
man  with  the  Foreign  Office  to  be  overborne  by 
Sir  Thomas  Wade.  He  said  we  were  taking 
away  from  the  wretched  mandarins — who,  if 
corrupt,  were  none  the  less  victims  of  a  system 
which  gave  them  no  adequate  pay — their  ac- 
customed local  revenues,  and  were  leaving  them 
no  chance  of  reasonable  gain ;  that  therefore 
he  would  do  nothing  in  the  matter  :  and  nothing 
ever  was  done  at  Canton  till  he  had  retired  and 
died.  What  he  meant  was  that,  as  the  Foreign 
Customs  pays  in  all  its  money  to  the  credit 
of  Peking,  and  Peking  appropriates  very  little 
of  it  to  salaries  or  provincial  uses,  the  local 
authorities  must  have  some  new  means  of  oiling 
the  administrative  machine.  To  understand  his 
theory,  which  is  really  a  very  just  one,  reference 
must  also  be  made  to  the  remarks  made  in  the 
chapter  on  "Revenue."  Not  one  cent  of  anything 
Peking  could  get  hold  of  in  Manchu  times  was 
ever  voluntarily  given  up  by  Peking  to  any 
person  for  any  purpose  except  what  concerned, 
directly  or  indirectly,  the  interests  of  Peking. 
The  Foreign  Customs,  of  course,  interfered 
greatly  with  the  development  of  the  native 
collectorates,  which  were  always  regarded  as  the 
great  plums  of  Palace  favour ;  and  if  the  Hoppo  ^ 
of  Canton^ — to  take  one  as  an  example — could 
not  recoup  the  million  or  so  of  dollars  he  had 
paid  for  his  post,  how  could  he  send  a  regular 
stream  of  gold  watches  and  chocolate  creams  to 
his  patrons  of  the  Seraglio  ?  Not  only  so  ;  the 
Taipings  had  ravaged  the  greater  part  of  the 
country,  and  the  rebellion  had  seriously  reduced 
the  yield  of  the  land-tax.  If  the  Men  had  no 
longer  any  "  superfluity  "  on  the  land-tax,  how 

1  p.  155.  2  Abolishedil904, 


250  LI  KIN  [chap,  xii 

was  he  to  grease  the  prefect's  palm,  the  prefect 
the  taotai^s,  the  taotai  the  treasurer's  and  the 
judge's,  and  so  on  up  to  the  Governor,  the 
Viceroy,  the  Board,  and  the  eunuchs,  not  to 
say  the  Emperor  and  the  Empress-Dowager  ? 
And,  so  far,  things  are  even  worse  under  the 
Repubhc.  I  do  not  defend  the  Chinese  system  ; 
but  I  say  we  must  put  a  little  human  nature 
into  our  condemnation  of  it.  How  are  you  to 
make  bricks  without  straw  ?  or,  as  the  Chinese 
say  :    "  How  make  a  meal  without  rice  ?  " 

It  must  be  remembered  that  Peking  and  the 
provinces  were  under  the  Manchus,  and  to  a 
certain  extent  still  are^  though  competing  rivals, 
at  the  same  time  one  great  "  trust "  or  "  com- 
bine "  for  all  matters  connected  wi{th  the  great 
national  industry  of  raising  the  wind.  A  Men  to- 
day may  be  a  secretary  of  state  to-morrow.  The 
mandarins  are  the  skilled  "  hands  "  in  a  big 
co-operative  scheme,  and  they  will  either  change 
the  foremen  or  strike,  unless  reasonable  com- 
promises are  made  with  them.  Then,  the  people 
themselves  are  "  in  it,"  for  China  was  republican 
in  fact  before  it  was  in  name,  and  any  indus- 
trious man  might  and  may  become  an  official. 
Nearly  every  one  says  (or  the  majority  say)  : 
"  All  right,  we  know  all  that ;  reform  is  neces- 
sary, but  give  me  my  share  of  the  good  things  in 
the  meantime."  Yet  there  have  not  been  lack- 
ing officials  who  have  taken  a  higher  view  even 
under  the  Empire.  In  1879,  when  the  Mussul- 
man rebellions  had  all  been  crushed,  and  the 
national  conscience  began  to  wake  up,  the  sale 
of  office  was  abolished  in  view  of  renascent 
prosperity,  and  it  was  seriously  proposed  to 
abolish  likin  too.  However,  Yellow  River  and 
other  disasters  and  complications  soon  drove  the 
Government  once  more  to  the  sale  of  titles,  and 
sometimes  of  real  office ;  so  likin  had  perforce  to 


A.D.  1902-1916]       A    SWASHBUCKLER  251 

remain.  After  the  "  Boxer  "  settlement  of  1901, 
a  second  move  was  made  towards  the  aboHtion 
of  likin  in  exchange  for  readjusted  import 
duties  ;  but  owing  to  the  difficulty  of  bringing 
all  the  Powers  into  line,  Sir  James  Mackay's 
well-meant  efforts  of  1902  bore  little  fruit. 
In  October  1903  the  United  States  and  Japan 
also  drew  up  treaties  with  China,  in  which  the 
latter  formally  agreed  to  suppress  likin  in  ex- 
change for  a  Ij  per  cent,  surtax,  bringing  up 
the  duties  on  foreign  imports  to  an  effective 
5  per  cent.  She  also  consented  to  reform  her 
currency,  weights  and  measures,  judicial  system, 
mining  regulations,  and  so  on  ;  to  open  Peking 
and  certain  new  ports  to  trade  ;  but  such  effect 
as  has  been  given  to  all  these  treaties  has  not 
forwarded  matters  very  much. 

The  omitted  particulars  given  in  the  earlier 
editions  about  the  likin  collected  in  each  province 
are  now  obsolete,  and  may  be  treated  as  non 
avenus,  the  more  so  in  that  ever  since  an  inde- 
pendent tutuh  set  up  in  each  province  at  the 
revolution  of  1911,  each  man  in  local  power  has 
been  more  or  less  a  law  unto  himself.  The  1911 
estimate  for  likin  was  originally  $36,500,000, 
but  as  some  provinces,  in  their  haste  to  enjoy 
the  fruits  of  democracy,  incontinently  proceeded 
to  abolish  likin,  the  budget  for  1913  only  esti- 
jnated  the  yield  at  $18,250,000.  Sir  Robert 
Hart  had  already  made  arrangements  during 
the  summer  of  1898  that  certain  of  the  salt  likin 
offices  in  the  Yang-tsze  valley  should  be  placed 
under  the  control  of  the  Commissioners  of  Mari- 
time Customs,  and  subsequently  it  was  agreed 
that  a  number  of  native  customs  houses  should  be 
transferred  to  these  foreign  connnissioners  too. 

When  a  swashbuckler  like  the  redoubtable 
Chang  Hiin  can  for  four  years  on  end  defy  all 
forms  of  central  government,  set  up  an  <nrmy  of 


252  LIKIN  [chap.  XII 

30,000  or  40,000  men  at  a  vital  junction  like  Sii- 
chou  in  North  Kiang  Su  (practically  controlling 
both  the  canal  and  the  railway,  not  to  speak  of  the 
general  communications  between  four  provinces), 
and  maintain  those  troops,  defiant  pigtails 
included,  in  affluence  and  efficiency,  it  must  be 
evident  that  likin  is  by  no  means  dead  in  that 
region,  for  blackmail  on  trade  is  his  chief  means 
for  raising  the  wind.  Every  military  satrap 
in  China,  whether  tutuh  as  first  self-styled, 
or  tsiang-kUn  as  dubbed  by  President  Yiian,  or 
tuh-kiln  (a  combination  of  the  other  two)  as 
called  by  President  Li,  does  the  sam.e  thing  so 
far  as  he  can  and  dare,  the  only  difference  being 
one  of  degree  ;  the  majority  do  it  to  fill  their 
own  private  pockets  and  those  of  their  sup- 
porters ;  others  to  maintain  their  armies  in  an 
effective  condition  for  the  provincial  good ; 
few,  very  few,  for  the  benefit  of  the  State  as  a 
whole,  and  the  advantage  of  the  public. 

It  follows  from  what  we  have  said  that  nothing 
clear  can  be  stated  statistically  of  likin  at  the 
present  moment.  So  far  as  opium  likin  is  con- 
cerned, it  appears  to  be,  at  least  de  jure,  entirely 
under  the  control  of  the  Foreign  Customs,  and 
in  any  case  opium  is  a  moribund  trade.  So  far 
as  salt  likin  is  concerned,  in  1898  Sir  R.  Hart,  as 
just  stated,  succeeded  in  controlling  a  few  centres, 
such  as  An-k'ing  ("Gankin"),  Kewkiang,  etc., 
whilst  Sir  R.  Dane  and  his  Chinese  controllers 
(who  seem  to  be  growing  more  and  more  con- 
vinced of  the  excellency  of  his  methods)  are 
gradually  raking  in  system  after  system  of  salt 
distribution,  and  station  after  station  of  salt  likin 
exactions.  Thus,  as  regards  these  two  main 
heads  of  opium  and  salt  likin,  the  reader  must 
be  referred  to  the  special  reports,  so  far  as  they 
are  given  to  the  public,  issued  by  the  Inspec- 
torate   of   Foreign   Customs    and    by   the   Salt 


A.D.  1900-1916]  TARRED  WITH  SAME  BRUSH  253 

Control  at  Peking,  which  latter  seems  to  be  a 
co-ordinate  branch  of  the  Board  of  Finance. 

So  far  as  general  likin  is  concerned,  the  tacit 
**  rule  "  seems  to  be  the  good  old  one  that  he  shall 
take  who  has  the  power,  and  lie  shall  keep  who 
can.  The  whole  financial  position  of  China  is  in 
a  hopeless  jumble  ;  the  honest  men  with  clean 
hands  are  few,  and  of  those  few  scarcely  any 
have  financial  capacity.  No  man  can  say  what 
each  province  gathers  in,  but  whatever  doles 
may  be  vouchsafed  to  Peking,  likin  is  not  one  of 
them.  If  Peking  is  to  get  anything,  the  tuh- 
kiln  (military)  or  sheng-chang  (civil)  governor 
prefers  that  the  cadastral  land-tax  should  furnish 
the  fund,  for  here  there  are  definite  registers 
to  consult.  Ever  since  likin  was  introduced 
sixty  years  ago,  it  has  been  tacitly  "  sealed  "  to 
provincial  uses,  and  only  shared  with  Peking 
under  pressure.  All  local  officials,  high  and  low, 
have  therefore  an  equal  interest  in  thim.ble- 
rigging.  When  the  Peking-Hankow  Railway 
was  approaching  completion,  the  viceroys  and 
governors  concerned  made,  with  the  approval  of 
the  Board  at  Peking,  fair  arrangements  under 
which  the  provinces  through  which  the  line 
passed  should  share  a  reasonable  likin  levy,  and 
presumably  this  arrangement  still  holds  good, 
more  or  less,  on  that  line.  But  on  the  Shanghai- 
Nanking  line,  and  still  more  on  the  Tientsin- 
P'u-k'ou  (Nanking)  line,  there  have  been  serious 
complaints  of  the  injury  done  to  trade,  and  the 
inconvenience  inflicted  upon  passengers.  In  the 
spring  of  1914  the  Legations  had  to  protest 
against  contraventions  of  the  1858  treaty  touch- 
ing transit  dues  in  An  Hwei  province,  and  against 
the  imposition  of  a  "  consumption  tax  "  at  de- 
stination. In  the  summer  of  that  year  both 
the  British  and  the  American  ministers  had  to 
protest  against  illegal  exactions  and  discrimina- 


254  LI  KIN  [chap,  xil 

tions  against  foreigners,  in  the  provinces  of 
Kiang  Su,  An  Hwei,  and  Cheh  Kiang :  a  post- 
ponement of  these  levies  was  demanded.  In 
the  late  summer  of  1915  the  British  minister 
had  to  protest  once  more  against  the  reintroduc- 
tion  of  likin  stations  (abolished  in  consequence  of 
the  1914  representations)  on  the  Tientsin-Nan- 
king line.  This  time  the  native  traders  of  the 
three  provinces  concerned' — Chih  Li,  Shan  Tung, 
and  Kiang  Su- — all  joined  in  the  protest.  The 
An  Hwei  traders  chimed  in  later  :  there  were 
complaints  of  levies  beyond  the  2j  per  cent, 
authorised  by  treaty,,  and  also  of  the  rough  way 
in  which  passengers'  baggage  was  treated.  Thus, 
not  only  do  these  miserable  local  exactions 
impose  an  irritating  obstacle  to  trade,  but  they 
seriously  affect  the  prosperity  of  the  trunk  railway 
lines  and  foreign  loan  interests.  China  can  never 
become  a  real  Power  until  provincial  and  sepa- 
ratist feelings  are  subordinated  to  the  general 
weal  of  the  State,  and  until  public  funds  cease  to 
be  regarded  as  legitimate  quarry  for  the  private 
fortune  hunter. 

Having  now  glanced  at  the  general  effect  of 
likin  upon  trade,  I  may  perhaps  be  permitted  to 
express  a  personal  opinion  that  the  merchant 
guilds  of  each  province  would  probably  be  only 
too  glad  to  pay  a  fixed  sum  of  from  1,000,000 
taels  to  10,000,000  taels  a  year  to  the  Govern- 
ment, according  to  wealth,  provided  that  no 
likin,  octroi,  fees,  consumption  taxes,  or  any 
charges  whatever  were,  under  any  pretext,  levied 
on  either  imports  or  exports,  except  at  the  treaty- 
ports  and  by  the  Foreign  Customs.  Jealousy  of 
the  Foreign  Custom.s  is  the  less  justifiable  now 
in  that  within  the  past  decade  it  has  been  sub- 
ordinated to  a  national  "  Customs  Department " 
at  Peking,  on  the  understanding,  however,  that 
the  British  Inspector-General  is  to  have  the  free 


A.D.  1900]  DISHONESTY  ALMOST  PRUSSIAN     255 

hand  he  always  had.  It  would  also  pay  foreign 
commerce  well  to  agree  to  a  general  increase 
of  duties  under  the  same  conditions.  But,  hand 
in  hand  with  these  two  reforms,  which  would  at 
once  go  far  towards  restoring  the  financial 
equilibrium  of  the  Empire,  out  of  the  100,000,000 
taels  or  so  thus  encashed,  at  least  one-half  would 
have  to  go  towards  inaugurating  an  entirely  new 
scheme  of  civil  service,  in  which  all  mandarins, 
high  and  low,  and  all  "  underlings,"  should 
have  a  sufficient  and  even  liberal  salary  or  wage 
for  work  done  :  this  latter  reform,  indeed,  w^as 
insisted  upon  by  the  "  three  good  viceroys  "  in 
the  long  discussions  subsequent  to  the  "  Boxer  " 
settlement  of  1901.  For  miany  years  to  come 
no  unaudited  accounts  should  be  entrusted  to 
Chinese,  and  a  fixed  currency  should  be  at  once 
introduced,  so  as  to  get  rid  of  the  bugbear  of 
shroffs  and  compradores :  as  with  the  Chinese 
in  Foreign  Customs  employ,  there  is  no  harm 
in  their  merely  handling  the  money  and  acting 
as  cashiers,  so  long  as  Europeans  manage  the 
balancing  of  the  accounts  and  employ  a  definite 
currency,  whether  it  be  gold,  silver,  or  copper. 
A  far-reaching  reform  of  this  kind  would,  how^ever, 
require  a  man  of  the  highest  calibre,  and  the 
best  part  of  his  remaining  life-time  at  that.  Un- 
fortunately national  jealousies  have  so  far  ren- 
dered such  a  scheme  difficult  of  achievement ;  and 
certainly  now  no  Prussian  will  ever  be  tolerated 
by  the  Entente  as  "  boss,"  with  a  Kultur  taint  of 
dishonest  croupierism,  and  with  general  false- 
hood, cheating,  and  unfairness  combined  in  his 
ill-shapen  distorted  pate. 


CHAPTER    XIII 

THE   ARMY 

At  the  time  the  first  edition  of  this  book  ap- 
peared, when  the  whole  civihsed  world,  so  to 
speak,  was  arrayed  in  arms  against  China  at  bay, 
the  question  of  her  armiaments  was  of  unusual 
interest.  But  it  was  then  no  easy  matter  to 
pourtray  the  existing  army  from  any  point  of 
view  whatever;  and  now,  when  everything  is 
modernised  and  changed,  it  is  still  difficult  to 
understand  the  position  without  casting  an 
eye  back  upon  the  historical  record.  First  of 
all,  there  was  the  old  Manchu  military  organisa- 
tion into  "  banners."  or  army  corps,  extended 
after  the  conquest  so  as  to  include  the  Mongols 
and  a  few  faithful  (or  traitor,  accordingly  as  we 
may  look  at  it)  native  Chinese.  The  late  Sir 
Thomas  (then  Mr.)  Wade  with  infinite  pains 
drew  up  about  sixty  years  ago  a  full  analysis  of 
this  system  ;  but  at  present  it  is  totally  obsolete 
for  the  effective  purposes  of  war,  and  therefore 
not  worth  describing  in  detail.  Yet  it  may  be 
useful,  though  the  Manchu  has  really  disap- 
peared (as  it  was  in  1900  contemplated  he  might 
disappear),  to  put  on  record  the  main  features 
of  the  formidable  aggregation  which  sufficed  to 
overrun  China  250  years  ago. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  principles  of 
military  organisation  perfected  by  the  Manchus 
were  conceived  in  the  same  general  spirit  and 

256 


A.D.  900-1900]  MANCHU  MILITARY  HISTORY  257 

form  as  those  of  their  ancestors  tlie  Niichens, 
who  imperially  ruled  North  China  from  1113  to 
1234  ;  and  these  latter  again  drew  part  of  their 
inspiration  from  a  distantly  allied  race  called 
the  Kitans,  who  had  ruled  much  the  same 
territory  as  northern  emperors,  and  on  an  equal 
footing  with  the  rulers  of  South  China,  from 
907  to  1112.  The  Kitans,  in  turn,  must  have 
inherited  traditions  from  the  still  earlier  State 
of  Puh-hai  alluded  to  on  pages  23,  133.  As 
modified  by  the  early  Manchu  chieftains  and 
emperors,  the  latest  Tungusic  organisation  was 
as  follows  I — 

There  were  eight  Manchu  banners,  in  pairs 
of  four  colours  (i.e.  plain  and  bordered),  three 
banners  being  of  higher  caste  than  the  other 
five,  like  the  three  Kitan  "  superior  tents,"  each 
banner  under  a  tu-fung.  Thus,  with  the  assimi- 
lated Mongols  and  the  descendants  of  "  faithful " 
Chinese,  there  were  twenty-four  banners,  num- 
bering in  all  from  200,000  to  220,000  men.  Just 
as  every  ordinary  Chinaman  belonged  and  still 
belongs  to  a  hien^  and  has  his  domicile  registered 
in  the  office  of  his  "  father  and  mother  man- 
darin," so  every  bannerman  belongs  to  what  the 
Manchus  styled  a  niuru,  and  has  his  military 
domicile  registered  at  the  headquarters  of  his 
colonel,  who  thus  stands  in  the  same  (or  a  some- 
what similar)  patriarchal  relation  to  his  military 
"  people,"  be  they  princes,  officers,  or  common 
troopers,  as  does  the  magistrate  to  his  civil 
population  :  it  must  be  added  that  when  Presi- 
dent Yiian  "  bought  out  "  the  dynasty  under 
Republican  pressure  in  1912,  he  guaranteed 
many  of  their  rights,  and  amongst  those  pre- 
served was  the  Banner  organisation,  so  far  as 
it  affected  the  imperial  family,  their  descendants, 
and  retainers :  hence  the  tu-fungs  and  iiiurus 
still  keep  their  titles,  registers  and  pensions,  but 


258  THE   ARMY  [chap,  xiii 

under  the  control  approval  of  the  republican 
Ministry  of  War.  About  150  years  ago,  when 
the  banner  organisation  was  at  its  best,  there 
were  679  Manchu,  227  Mongol,  and  264  Chinese 
colonels  (or  tsoling,  the  other  current  name  for  the 
Manchu  niuru),  each  in  theoretical  command  of 
300  families  (troopers) ;  but  the  actual  total  has 
always  stood  at  about  two-thirds  of  the  theo- 
retical, and  the  natural  increment  of  able-bodied 
men  has  from  economical  considerations  been 
drafted  off  into  the  categories  of  expectants, 
supernumeraries,  and  so  on,  drawing  less  or  no 
pay.  With  this  limited  force  of  archers  and 
spearmen  China  was  conquered,  for  the  artillery 
supplied  with  Jesuit  assistance  was  only  used 
on  rare  occasions  ;  but  of  course  local  troops  had 
even  from  the  first  to  be  forced  or  cajoled  to 
assist  the  comparatively  small  bodies  of  banner- 
men,  who  acted  rather  as  "  stiff eners"  than  as  the 
main  body,  just  as  the  bulk  of  our  Indian  and 
African  armies  are  of  native  races,  honourably 
"  stiffened,"  in  the  proportion  each  emergency 
requires,  with  a  backbone  of  British  soldiers; 
or  just  as  the  Czechs,  Bosnians,  Poles,  and  other 
unwilling  Slavs  are  less  honourably  forced  or 
cajoled  into  assisting  their  bullying  Germanic 
conquerors.  The  elite  of  the  banner  forces, 
always  more  than  half,  from  the  first  (1644) 
served  to  hedge  in  majesty  at  and  around 
Peking ;  but  at  certain  vital  provincial  cen- 
tres, such  as  Canton,  Foochow,  Hangchow,  etc., 
banner  garrisons  with  their  families,  forming 
a  sort  of  hereditary  privileged  caste  within  the 
inner  walls,  were  until  the  1911  revolution  kept 
under  a  Tartar  General,  theoretically  in  order 
to  "  keep  down "  the  turbulent  "  Man-tsz  " 
or  Chinese,  and  actually  to  hold  the  keys  of 
the  city  gates.  The  feeding  of  these  privileged 
soldiery  was  a  first  charge  upon  the  revenues  of 


A.D.  1880-1910]     NATIVE  GREEN  BANNERS     259 

China,  and  it  is  thus  only  natural  that  so  expen- 
sive an  incubus  should  have  severely  tested  the 
loyalty  of  the  Chinese  majority  not  enjoying  any 
such  banner  privileges.  For  many  years  previous 
to  1911,  7,000,000  taels  had  been  the  fixed 
"  first  "  appropriation  for  those  at  Peking  alone, 
and  a  "  supplementary"  vote  of  at  least  1,000,000 
usually  followed.  As  all  this  money  came  from 
the  provinces,  a  fortiori  the  latter  had  to  find  the 
money  for  their  own  local  bannermen  and  for 
their  Chinese  armies  as  well.  If  the  finances  of 
China,  already  described  as  having  been  so 
flourishing  150  years  ago,  had  not  been  shattered 
by  a  succession  of  rebellions  and  foreign  troubles ; 
if  these  bannermen  had  maintained  their  mili- 
tary virtues,  their  robust  simplicity  and  man- 
liness, the  Empire  would  neither  have  felt  the 
burden  severely,  nor  grudged  the  necessity  of  this 
heavy  charge  :  the  preservation  of  order,  and  a 
national  sense  of  pride  in  power  and  prestige, 
would  have  amply  compensated  for  the  price 
paid  to  a  few  privileged  keepers  of  the  peace 
and  the  purse-strings  ;  just  as  in  India  the  tax- 
payer has  some  satisfaction,  in  the  shape  of 
security  for  person  and  property,  to  show  for 
the  (to  him)  huge  salaries  he  pays  to  his  British 
administrators.  But,  unhappily,  the  inactive 
bannerman,  both  at  Peking  and  in  the  provinces, 
had  towards  the  end  degenerated  into  idle, 
flabby,  and  too  often  opium-smoking  parasites  ; 
they  had  long  neglected  even  to  keep  up  their 
archery,  which  in  any  case  had  become  useless  in 
these  days  of  magazine  rifles,  though  it  might 
have  nourished  a  wholesome  muscular  habit  of 
body  if  persisted  in,  much  as  our  nearly  obsolete 
sailing  craft  nourish  a  bold  race  of  turbine  steamer 
skippers  :  in  1905,  however,  archery  examinations 
were  formally  abolished.  In  the  provinces  these 
degenerate  Manchus  were  often,  practically, 
19 


260  THE  ARMY  [chap,  xiii 

honourable  prisoners,  rigidly  confined  within 
the  limits  of  the  city  walls,  in  the  midst  of  a 
semi-hostile  population  speaking  a  dialect  which 
bannermen  were  brought  up  in,  or  had  to  learn, 
in  addition  to  their  own  if  they  wished  even  to 
purchase  a  cabbage  in  the  streets ;  and  the 
Tartar  General,  who  nominally  outranked  even 
the  Chinese  Viceroy,  was  really  often  a  self- 
indulgent,  ignorant  incompetent. 

The  Chinese  army  or  "  Green  Banner  "  was 
organised  in  the  following  way,  or  was  theoretic- 
ally so  organised  until  (1852-1865)  the  Taiping 
rebellion  and  foreign  wars  necessitated  fresh 
patchwork.  As  I  did  in  the  case  of  civil  govern- 
ment, so  do  I  now  with  the  military  administra- 
tion :  in  order  to  leave  clearly  outlined  impres- 
sions, I  first  state  the  general  principles,  reserving 
exceptions  and  special  detail  for  the  end.  Each 
province  had  a  General,  in  supreme  command  of 
the  green  troops,  and  in  immediate  command 
of  a  portion  of  them  ;  his  yamen  was  sometimes 
at  the  provincial  capital,  sometimes  at  a  (now 
abolished)  ju  city,  or  other  place  more  strategic- 
ally important.  This  officer's  "  button  "  rank  was 
one  nuance  higher  even  than  that  of  a  viceroy  ; 
but  in  the  diplomatic  and  civil  part  of  his  busi- 
ness he  had  to  report  and  memorialise  conjointly 
with  the  Viceroy,  who  (unless  the  General  were  a 
very  able  man,  and  charged  with  very  important 
duty)  was  often  to  most  intents  his  superior 
officer.  He  had  under  him  from  two  to  six 
brigadier-generals,  each  in  high  command  of  a 
brigade,  and  in  immediate  command  of  part  of 
one :  their  yamen  in  each  case  was  either  at 
a  first-class  city,  or  at  some  special  point  where 
foreigners  or  other  objectionable  persons  had  to 
be  kept  down.  It  all  depended  upon  the  real 
work  being  done.  And  so  it  went  on.  Colonels, 
majors,    captains,    lieutenants,    sergeants,    and 


A.D.  1908-1916]  NEW  COMMANDERS'  TITLES  261 

corporals  were,  and  no  doubt  still  are  each  in 
command  of  greater  or  smaller  bodies  of  men, 
stationed  in  the  cities,  towns,  and  markets,  and 
co-operating  with  the  civilian  Mens,  assistant 
magistrates,  and  other  small  fry,  down  to  the 
village  headman.  Now  (1916)  the  tuh-kiin  or 
Military  Governor  is  the  sole  supreme  chief  in 
each  province ;  the  other  chiefs  appointed  directly 
by  the  President  are  called  chen-shou-sh'i  or 
''  Order-preserving  Commissioners,"  and  seem  to 
correspond  to  the  now  extinct  brigadier-generals ; 
but  there  are  also  hu-kiin-sh'i  and  other  occa- 
sional sh'i  or  commissioners  not  yet  very  defini- 
tively sorted  out. 

The  old  term  "  green  "  has  gone  out  of  use, 
and  the  army  is  simply  "  the  land  army " 
into  which  Manchus,  other  bannermen,  braves, 
"  greens,"  "  savages,"  or  any  one  else  may  enlist. 
There  is  little  use  discussing  further  organisation 
so  long  as  each  province  is  practically  independent 
of  Peking.  Military  officers  in  Manchu  times 
were  always  supposed  to  ride  on  horseback,  and 
not  sit  in  sedans ;  but  in  latter  degenerate  days 
this  rule  was  honoured  more  in  the  breach  than 
the  observance.  Civilian  officers  could  never 
serve  in  or  very  near  to  their  own  province,  but 
military  officers  nearly  always  did  so;  and  in- 
deed often  must,  for  otherwise  they  would  not 
be  able  to  talk  promptly  to  their  men.  This 
question  of  serving  in  your  own  province  came 
up  for  serious  consideration  in  the  months 
immediately  preceding  the  death  (1908)  of  the 
famous  Dowager,  who  towards  the  end  became 
an  ardent  and  convinced  reformer  ;  it  was  pro- 
posed to  modify  the  civilian  disabilities  up  to  a 
certain  grade  of  rank.  Now,  under  the  Republic, 
it  is  too  early  to  speak  of  definite  rules,  but  in 
practice  the  old  rule  is  ignored ;  for  instance,  the 
Military  and  Civil  Governor  (pro  tern.)   of  Hu 


262  THE  ARMY  [chap,  xiii 

Nan,  T'an  Yen-k'ai,  is  at  this  moment  (1917)  a 
native,  and  the  press  hails  this  fact  as  a  good 
quahiication. 

Now,  for  two  centuries  at  least,  all  "  green  " 
officers,  from  general  to  corporal,  had  been 
engaged,  despite  numerous  spasmodic  punish- 
ments and  reforms,  in  wholesale  peculation,  and 
neither  the  garrison  branch  nor  the  fighting 
branch  of  the  troops  supposed  to  be  under  their 
commands,  even  if  in  some  cases  it  existed 
at  all,  has  had  more  than  a  partial  or  temporary 
existence.  A  green  soldier,  like  a  bannerman, 
came  in  the  long  piping  times  of  peace  to  regard 
what  reduced  pay  and  allowances  his  officers 
left  to  him  as  a  sort  of  hereditary  sinecure,  there 
being  a  tacit  understanding  that  A  and  his  suc- 
cessors would  pay  one  shilling  to  B  and  his  heirs, 
provided  B  would  now  and  for  ever  sign  vouchers 
for  two  shillings,  and  clap  on  a  uniform  "  to  his 
back  "  each  time  the  Viceroy  or  any  other  "  big 
man "  should  come  round  to  hold  a  review. 
This  state  of  affairs  seems  to  have  been  tacitly 
connived  at  even  by  the  earlier  and  abler  Man- 
chus  at  Peking,  who  were  in  no  hurry  to  see 
effective  armies  in  the  provinces  they  "fed" 
upon.  They  could  easily  send  to  any  point  a 
fighting  body  of  mounted  Mongols,  or  of  Solon- 
Manchus,  when  danger  really  arose. 

When  the  great  rebellions  and  the  foreign 
complications  consequent  thereon  broke  out 
sixty  or  more  years  ago,  the  imperial  leaders 
had  recourse  to  the  device  of  hiring  "  braves  " 
to  do  the  fighting.  That  is,  such  "  soldiers  " 
as  existed,  and  had  no  stomach  for  the  merry 
wars,  were  left  to  perform  garrison  and  police 
duty,  whilst  either  sturdy  peasants  or  such  of 
the  youthful  soldiers  as  were  willing  and  able 
to  fight  were  engaged,  at  much  higher  rates  of 
pay  than  the  craven  soldiers  received,  in  order  to 


A.D.  1860-1910]      FALSTAFFIAN    RASCALS         268 

induce  them  to  face  the  foreign  enemy.  Under 
competent  leadership  the  Chinese  brave — and 
indeed  the  Chinese  soldier,  when  his  concrete 
existence  with  all  his  limbs  and  organs  abouthim 
was  placed  beyond  cavil  or  doubt — was,  I  take  it, 
as  good  as  any  other  average  fighting  man.  But 
of  course  a  warrior  to  succeed  must  be  fed,  and 
supplied  with  arms  at  least  nearly  as  good  as  the 
enemy's ;  and  this  even  if  he  gets  no  pay,  clothes, 
medical  attendance,  or  protection  from  the  ele- 
ments— all  which  accessories  a  Chinese  warrior 
of  the  old-fashioned  pre-"  Boxer"  kind  could 
and  did  dispense  with  at  a  pinch  more  or  less 
cheerfully. 

When  the  wars  of  the  sixties  were  over,  spas- 
modic efforts  were  made,  not  only  to  drill  and 
supply  with  foreign  weapons  a  certain  number 
of  bannermen  at  Peking,  Canton,  and  a  few  other 
places  where  foreigners  were  well  to  the  fore, 
but  also  to  keep  the  braves  up  to  the  mark.  The 
greens  were  too  far  gone  for  anything  to  be  done 
with  them,  qua  greens  ;  but,  carefully  weeded 
out,  some  of  them  were  occasionally  available 
as  reserve  braves.  As  a  Foochow  green  captain 
wittily  remarked  twenty  years  ago,  in  his  report 
to  the  High  Commissioners,  when  nettled  at  the 
Board's  contemptuous  comments  on  his  mere 
'* soldiers"  :  "  After  all,  there  is  no  essential  dif- 
ference betv/een  a  soldier  and  a  brave.  Both  are 
simply  men.  If  you  pay  my  soldiers  as  well  as 
you  pay  his  braves,  my  soldiers  will  be  braves ; 
but  if  you  starve  his  braves  as  you  are  starving 
my  soldiers,  his  braves  will  be  soldiers.  Braves  or 
soldiers,  it  is  in  each  case  a  question  of  true 
pay-rolls,  unpeculated  pay,  sufficient  food  and 
drill,  and  good  rifles." 

After  making  a  fair  show  in  1880  against  the 
Russians  in  Hi  and  in  1884  against  the  French 
in  Tonquin — not  to  mention  the  earlier  recon- 


264  THE  ARMY  [chap,  xiii 

quests  of  Turkestan  from  Yakub  Beg  (1874), 
and  Yiin  Nan  from  Suliman  the  Panthay  (1873) 
— the  Chinese,  or  rather  the  Manchu  Government, 
began  to  get  presumptuous,  and  our  own  blunders 
led  them,  or  contributed  to  lead  them,  on  the 
wrong  tack  in  Corea  in  1886.  The  result  of  ten 
years'  Corean  bickerings  was  the  Japanese  war  of 
1894,  in  which  navy,  braves,  bannermen,  and 
soldiers  were  all  alike  knocked  "sky-high"; 
and  China,  smarting  under  the  weight  of  shame 
and  a  heavy  indemnity,  began  to  make  genuine 
and  serious  efforts  to  put  her  military  house  in 
order.  It  was  at  once  seen  and  admitted  that, 
as  a  fighting  value,  the  whole  green  army  might 
be  abolished  at  one  stroke  of  the  pen  ;  it  was 
suggested  in  1896  that  a  standing  army  of 
300,000  men  in  ten  districts  should  be  raised  ; 
but  it  was  pointed  out,  and  also  at  once  admitted, 
that  the  "  vested  rights  "  even  of  common  soldiers 
must  be  considered,  or  the  worm  might  turn ;  not 
to  miention  the  necessity  of  providing  for  gallant 
officers  who  had  received  brevet  rank  for  more 
or  less  imaginary  victories,  and  who  looked  to 
substantive  promotion.  Besides,  feeble  though 
the  greens  were,  there  was  no  other  force 
to  maintain  elementary  order  in  the  country 
towns,  to  check  smugglers,  to  guard  city  gates, 
to  escort  prisoners  and  dignitaries,  to  watch 
passes,  fords,  and  other  pivot  points  on  lines  of 
communication.  It  was  therefore  decided  to 
do  away  with  a  quarter  or  a  half  of  the  greens  in 
every  province,  according  to  the  degree  of  cor- 
ruption prevailing  in  each  place,  and  at  any  rate 
not  to  fill  up  or  create  more  vacancies.  The 
difficulty  about  officers  was,  "  How  can  we 
deprive  His  Majesty's  deserving  officers  of  their 
salaries  and  expectations  ?  And,  if  we  pay  them 
for  commanding,  how  can  we  entirely  abolish 
their   commands  ?  "     Then   came   the   German 


A.D.  1897-1908]       HASTY    ARMY    REFORMS       265 

attack  on  Kiao  Chou,  and  the  counter  demands 
of  other  Powers;  German  training  officers  were 
accordingly  engaged  to  form  really  effective 
armies  at  Nanking  and  Wuch'ang.  Tlie  young 
Emperor  and  his  advisers  were  thus  in  a  fair  way 
to  solve  some,  if  not  all,  of  these  knotty  points 
by  introducing  sweeping  reforms.  But  His 
Majesty  was  in  too  much  of  a  hurry,  and, 
alarmed,  the  Empress-Dowager  by  a  counterblast 
gave  short  shrift  to  most  of  these  reforms,  whilst 
the  intrigues  of  disappointed  peculators,  both 
civil  and  military,  doubtless  had  a  good  deal 
to  do  with  bracing  that  energetic  lady  up  to  the 
further  decisive  action  point  of  conducting  a  de 
jacto  if  tacit  regency  once  more  in  the  name  of 
the  de  jure  Emperor.  The  weak  part  of  Chinese 
reforms  is  and  always  has  been  the  absence  of 
continuity  and  sustained  effort.  The  Chinese 
never  know  how  to  persist.  No  sooner  are 
reductions  made  and  the  savings  therefrom 
applied  to  new  efforts,  than  fresh  appropriations 
of  money  are  required  to  complete  these  efforts. 
When  the  results  are  good,  it  is  felt  that  econo- 
mies may  be  made.  And  thus  things  go  on 
in  a  perpetual  vicious  circle.  Compensation  to 
incapables  who  have  been  got  rid  of :  savings 
thus  overestimated,  and  insufficient  to  get  good 
men  :  sudden  alarms  and  hasty  additions  : 
ultimate  extra  expenditure  instead  of  the  savings 
expected,  in  order  really  to  get  the  men  re- 
quired :  reduction  in  the  number  of  the  men 
now  competent,  or  in  their  pay,  in  order  to  bring 
the  permanent  expenditure  back  within  normal 
limits.  Meanwhile  Yiian  Shi-k'ai  had  after  his 
Corean  failure  trained  up  an  excellent  force  near 
Tientsin  and  had  (1898)  supported  the  Dowager 
against  the  Emperor. 

Although  several  viceroys  and  governors  took 
advantage  of  the  Empress-Dowager's  volte-face 


266  THE  ARMY  [chap,  xiii 

to  obtain  "  reconsideration  "  of  certain  reduc- 
tions already  sanctioned,  each  province,  or  at 
least  each  one  exposed  to  "foreign  insult,"  did 
really  make  genuine  efforts  within  the  two  years 
preceding  the  "  Boxer  "  rising  to  place  its  mili- 
tary power  upon  a  proper  basis.  The  ridiculous 
"Boxer"  fiasco  was  really  a  manifestation  of 
public  indignation  at  the  inability  of  the  Manchu 
dynasty  to  preserve  China's  honour;  that  was 
why  the  Dowager,  in  her  alarm,  conceived  the 
idea  of  utilising  this  dangerous  popular  movement 
on  her  own  side ;  why  she  shuffled  and  hesitated 
so  much ;  and  why  the  two  viceroys  possessing 
German-trained  armies  at  Nanking  and  Hankow 
(Wuch'ang)  joined  Yuan  in  ignoring  her  orders 
to  massacre  all  foreigners.  They  three  alone 
knew  what  real  armies  were,  and  how  China 
was  only  beginning  to  acquire  the  elements  of 
military  strength ;  hence  our  characterisation  of 
"  three  good  viceroys." 

In  1901,  when  the  "Boxer"  settlement  was 
being  arranged,  the  Viceroy  Chang  Chi-tung  sent 
in  a  memorial  plainly  setting  forth  the  utter 
futility  and  wastefulness  of  the  green  banner 
troops,  and  in  that  year  a  Decree  approved  an 
entirely  new  army  scheme,  including  training 
schools  for  officers  and  men,  Army  Council, 
General  Staff,  an  active  army  in  twenty  territorial 
sections  or  army  corps,  with  divisions,  battalions, 
cavalry  regiments,  and  artillery  batteries,  en- 
gineer companies,  etc.,  all  complete.  Total, 
500,000  fighting  units.  Then  there  was  to  be  a 
Reserve  Force,  with  9  (1st)  and  3  years'  (2nd) 
liability  after  active  service.  Most  instructors 
were  from  Germany  and  Japan.  Efforts  were 
made  to  secure  some  sort  of  uniformity  in  artil- 
lery, rifles,  small  arms,  rates  of  pay,  uniforms, 
manoeuvring,  and  drill.  The  more  successful 
armies — those  under  the  three  good  viceroys — 


A.D.  1906-1912]      THE    MODERN    ARMY  267 

were  to  draft  off  officers  and  instructors  to  aid 
the  more  backward  provinces.  There  were  long 
discussions  about  the  necessity  of  cultivating  the 
military  spirit;  historical  comparisons  showing 
how  the  soldier  and  civilian  officers  were  in  the 
good  old  times  of  equal  dignity ;  how  the  mili- 
tary man  had  fallen  from  his  high  estate ;  how 
in  foreign  countries  even  princes  belonged  to 
the  army  or  the  navy ;  how  absurd  it  was  to 
lock  up  Manchu  princes  in  otiose  inactivity  at 
Peking;  and  so  on.  It  never  seemed  to  strike 
any  one  that  this  sudden  appreciation  of  the 
despised  soldier  might  galvanise  him  into  a 
Frankenstein  dangerous  to  the  dynasty ;  but 
that  is  what  has  occurred;  and  since  the  Re- 
public was  established  in  1911-1912  the  soldier 
has  come  into  his  own  with  a  vengeance,  and  has 
become  a  body,  or  rather  many  bodies,  of  prae- 
torian guards  or  janissaries,  threatening  at  every 
instant  the  establishment  of  legitimate  authority. 
Even  when  the  Manchu  dynasty  in  1908 
seemed  to  be  recovering  its  authority,  when  the 
Dowager  appeared  earnestly  convinced  of  the 
necessity  of  legal,  constitutional,  financial,  educa- 
tional, and  army  reform,  there  were  signs  of 
military  restlessness ;  for  instance,  demands, 
even  made  by  prominent  Manchus,  for  the 
abolition  of  pigtails  and  petticoats,  for  recourse 
to  a  more  practicable  and  manly  dress,  and  for 
equality  of  status  between  civil  and  military 
officials.  In  view  of  this  the  State  soon  saw 
that  railway  communications  were  the  true  key 
to  military  efficiency,  and  thus  a  new  struggle 
sprang  up  between  provincial  interests  and  the 
desire  to  control  provincial  railways  on  the  one 
hand,  and  State  interests  (not  unjustly  suspected 
to  be  dynastic  interests)  counselling  towards 
direct  State  control  of  all  railways.  This  struggle 
was  exacerbated  by  the  failure  of  the   Ningpo 


268  THE  ARMY  [chap,  xiii 

and  Sz  Ch'wan  railway  projects  under  local 
control,  and  the  determined  but  sensible  Peking 
effort  to  lay  hands  nilly-willy  upon  the  manage- 
ment of  these  lines.  This  question,  indeed, 
seems  to  have  been  the  one  that  most  im- 
mediately precipitated  the  unripe  revolution 
of  1911. 

Meanwhile  under  the  feeble  regency  ( 1 909-1 91 1 ) 
of  the  younger  Prince  Ch'un  (the  Emperor 
Kwang-sii's  brother),  who  allowed  himself  to  be 
controlled  by  Palace  agencies,  and  above  all  by 
the  vengeful  spite  of  the  new  Dowager  (widow  of 
Kwang-sii),  the  independence  of  military  spirit 
grew  in  proportion  to  the  progressiveness  and 
efficiency  of  provincial  armies.  Two  of  the 
"  three  good  viceroys  "  (Liu  K'un-yih  and  Chang 
Chi-tung)  were  no  more,  whilst  the  third  (Yiian 
Shi-k'ai)  having  been  summoned  in  1907  from 
his  Tientsin  administrative  successes  to  Peking, 
promptly  after  the  Dowager's  and  Emperor's 
deaths  in  1908,  fell  a  victim  to  these  intrigues, 
and  was  summarily  ejected  from  the  capital. 
Thus  the  one  man  who  had  practically  created 
the  modern  army,  and  could  control  it,  was 
relegated  to  obscurity,  and,  directly  the  Han- 
kow-Sz  Ch'wan  revolt  broke  out  in  October  1911, 
all  these  provincial  army  chiefs  "pronounced" 
in  O'Donnell  fashion,  and  constituted  themselves 
tutuh  or  independent  military  rulers  respectively 
of  each  province,  a  state  of  affairs  that,  after 
various  changes  in  name,  practically  exists  in 
milder  outward  form  at  the  moment  I  write. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  recount  the  details  of  the 
army  reorganisation  as  above  described,  based 
upon  the  reforms  initiated  in  1905.  In  1912  the 
Republic  changed  the  names  once  more,  names 
so  often  changed  from  antiquity  that  any  given 
one  may  mean  squad,  company,  regiment,  or 
army  according  to  its  adapted  signification   at 


A.D.  1914]     LATEST  ARMY  DESIGNATIONS      269 

this  or  that  date  in  the  past.  One  word,  however, 
has  persisted  through  centuries,  and  that  is 
yingy  meaning  an  entrenched  or  walled-in  camp 
of  from  500  to  1,000  men,  and  which  we  may 
here  translate  "  battalion,"  as  it  can  be  used 
either  in  an  illustrative  sense,  as  "  God  favours 
the  strong  battalions,"  or  in  a  specific  sense,  as 
"  one  battalion  only  got  across."  My  French 
colleague  Professor  A.  Vissiere  (possessing  the 
retired  rank  of  Minister  Plenipotentiary)  pub- 
lished in  1914  an  excellent  account  in  the  Journal 
Asiatique  (Jan.-Feb.),  and  from  it  I  take  the 
following  : — 

An  army  corps  is  called  a  kiln  (the  whole 
*'  navy  "  is  called  the  "  sea-kiin  "  and  the  whole 
"  army  "  the  "  land-kiln  ").  A  division  is  termed 
a  sM;  a  brigade,  lil;  a  regiment,  fwan;  batta- 
lion, ying  ;  and  a  company,  lien.  The  basis  of 
gradation  is,  after  Japanese  model,  expressed 
by  one  syllable :  thus  all  generals  are  tsiang,  all 
superior  officers  are  hiao,  all  subaltern  officers 
are  wei,  and  all  sous-officiers  are  shi ;  but  all 
the  above  are  subdivided  into  three,  i.e.  shang, 
chung,  and  hia,  meaning  "top,  middle,  bottom": 
thus  we  have  top  general  of  an  army  corps, 
middle  general  of  a  division,  and  bottom  general 
of  a  brigade  ;  and,  proceeding  downwards,  in 
the  same  way  colonel,  lieutenant-colonel,  com- 
mandant (I  presume  =  major)  ;  then  captain, 
lieutenant,  sub-lieutenant;  and  so  on  with  the 
top,  middle,  and  bottom  shi  (corresponding,  I 
suppose,  with  our  sergeant,  corporal,  etc.). — 
Thus  M.  Vissiere.  The  rank  and  file  have  im- 
mensely improved  since  I  penned  my  serio-comic 
and  somewhat  contemptuous  description  of  the 
Chinese  "Tommy"  as  he  existed  up  to  1900; 
at  the  same  time,  whilst  totally  withdrawing  it 
from  this  edition,  I  must  remind  readers  that 
even  in  1900  I  expressed  the  utmost  confidence 


270  THE   ARMY  [chap,  xiii 

in  Tommy's  "bottom"  (as  Dr.  Johnson  em- 
barrassingly said  in  the  presence  of  Miss  Hannah 
More),  and  declared  that  I  myself  would  not 
hesitate  to  lead  Chinese  soldiers  (brought  into 
shape  under  my  own  supervision)  against  any 
troops  in  existence;  "for,  Sir,  they  have  a  bottom 
of  good  sense." 

As  to  the  Chinese  navy,  I  think  I  was  the  first  to 
greet  the  future  Captain  Lang,  R.N.,  when,  with 
the  future  Captain  Ching,  R.N.  (two  curiously 
Chinese  names !),  he  brought  out  the  first  mos- 
quito gun-boats  to  Pagoda  Anchorage  in  June 
1877.  I  again  met  Admiral  Lang  at  the  same 
place  in  May  1890  when,  with  Admiral  Ting, 
he  was  in  joint  command  of  a  powerful  Chinese 
fleet.^  Meanwhile  (once  more  on  the  same  spot) 
such  fleet  as  the  Chinese  had  between  the  above 
two  dates  was  destroyed  by  Admiral  Courbet 
in  Septem.ber  1884.  The  navy  at  present  is' — 
and  politically  wisely- — as  negligible  a  quantity 
as  ever,  and  there  would  be  no  practical  object 
in  describing  here  the  history  of  its  failures. 

^  For  this  humorous  incident  see  John  Chinaman  (Murray,  1901). 


CHAPTER    XIV 

PERSONAL    CHARACTERISTICS 

It  is  only  natural  that,  at  a  moment  when  all 
Europe  is  watching  the  great  issues  involved  in 
the  present  struggles  of  the  Chinese  democracy 
to  carve  out  for  itself  a  place  in  the  sun  of 
civilisation  and  progress,  special  interest  should 
attach  to  the  question  of  personal  qualities. 
Volumes  have  already  been  written  on  this 
subject;  but  the  Rev.  Arthur  Smith,  in  his 
matchless  volume  Chinese  Characteristics,  has  for 
long  been  and  still  is  universally  regarded  as 
having  best  expressed  those  judgments  which 
most  of  us  feel  to  be  just,  but  few  of  us  are  gifted 
with  the  art  of  clearly  enunciating- — not  to  say 
with  the  verve  and  insight  of  the  inimitable 
American  author.  I  feel  an  unjustifiable  pride  in 
recalling  the  fact  that,  when  the  first  papers  came 
out  anonymously  about  thirty  years  ago,  I  was  re- 
peatedly asked — dubiously — if  I  was  the  author ; 
the  sentiments  being  occasionally  recognisable  as 
mine,  the  just  doubts  being  whether  I  was  capable 
of  writing  anything  so  entertaining  and  readable. 
I  have  not  to  this  day  read  any  of  Mr.  Smith's 
appreciations,  except  the  first  few  anonymous 
ones,  and  I  now  therefore  simply  give,  not  his 
judgment  nor  the  judgment  of  mankind,  but  my 
own  individual  opinion  after  a  generation  of  total 
residence  in  nearly  all  parts  of  China. 

Of  the   Manchus,   as   distinguished   from  the 

271 


272       PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS     [chap,  xiv 

Chinese,  I  can  only  speak  touching  those  who 
under  the  Empire  used  to  inhabit  Peking, 
Canton,  Foochow,  Nanking,  Hangchow,  and 
Chinkiang,  and  who  seem  to  have  since  quietly 
and  inoffensively  merged  into  the  local  popu- 
lations. Except  in  the  case  of  Peking,  where 
the  Manchu  and  Chinese  population  was  so 
mixed  as  to  be  indistinguishable  to  any  but  the 
most  observant  eye,  the  Manchus  were  all 
"  bannermen  "  ;  that  is,  a  privileged  caste  of 
soldiers,  having  their  families  with  them,  living 
in  cantonments  amongst  a  people  speaking 
(except  in  the  case  of  Nanking  and  Chinkiang) 
a  totally  different  dialect.  Their  life  was  a 
haughty  and  exclusive  one,  and  what  natural 
characteristics  they  may  have  had  were  inevit- 
ably coloured  by  the  nature  of  their  surround- 
ings. Mixed  marriages  were  not  allowed  until 
after  the  "  Boxer "  settlement,  when  steps 
began  to  be  taken  to  assimilate  the  Manchus 
to  the  Chinese  in  many  ways.  Of  all  these 
Manchus  I  should  say  their  chief  characteristic 
was  a  combination  of  laziness  and  pride  ;  but 
wherever  placed  with  foreigners  in  the  relation 
of  pupil  to  teacher,  as  for  instance  in  schools, 
drill-grounds,  laboratories,  etc.,  their  bearing,  as 
was  natural  with  a  ruling  race,  was  distinctly 
more  dignified  than  that  of  Chinese.  The  speci- 
mens of  Manchu  mandarins  (always  hailing  from 
Peking)  I  have  met  in  the  provinces  have 
invariably  appeared  to  me  to  be  more  jovial, 
easy-going,  accommodating  if  not  reasonable, 
impulsive,  and  careless  of  consequences  than 
the  Chinese  :  at  the  same  time  less  capable  of 
business,  less  cautious  about  public  opinion,  more 
ignorant  and  indiscreet.  The  princes  at  Peking 
were  of  course  haughty,  and  often  a  trifle  sullen, 
as  became  the  degenerate  descendants  of  fine 
manly   fellows   like  the   earlier   emperors ;     for 


A.D.  1870-1900]   MANCHU  CHARACTERISTICS    273 

they  felt  themselves  de  jure  entitled  to  all  the 
deep-felt  respect  their  ancestors  exacted,  but  de 
Jacto  impotent  to  obtain  even  a  shabby  imitation 
of  it;  moreover  the  innumerable  tsung-shih,  or 
(poor)  relations  of  the  blood  were  not  under 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  ordinary  courts,  until  in 
1907  their  conduct  became  so  offensive  that  Mixed 
Courts  "of  a  sort"  were  established  to  deal 
with  the  anomaly.  The  Manchus,  like  nearly 
all  northerners,  have  a  tendency  to  get  drunk. 
Here,  again,  they  differ  from  the  Chinese,  but 
are  not  so  bad  as  the  more  simple  Mongols. 
Even  at  official  interviews  a  Manchu  mandarin 
was  occasionally  flushed  with  liquor,  in  which 
case  he  often  adopted  a  braggart's  airs.  As  to 
bravery,  I  don't  believe  a  Manchu  is  by  nature 
either  more  or  less  brave  than  a  Chinaman.  If  it 
is  brave  to  commit  suicide  rather  than  to  suffer 
humiliation,  then  both  are  equally  courageous.  If 
it  is  cowardly  to  run  when  you  have  no  confidence 
in  the  honesty  or  capacity  of  your  officers,  then 
both  are  equally  cowardly.  But,  generally,  it 
appears  to  me  that  true  courage  is  often  indis- 
tinguishable from  pinchbeck  all  the  world  over, 
and  depends  very  much  upon  local  ideas  of 
"  good  form,"  and  external  circumstances  and 
surroundings  of  every  kind;  for  instance  the 
French  and  the  Belgians  are  showing  the  noblest 
courage,  whilst  the  Prussians  are  exhibiting  the 
basest  cowardice,  moral  and  other. 

With  the  above  qualifications,  and  also  re- 
serving the  question  of  the  purer  Manchus  in 
Manchuria,  of  whom  I  know  nothing,  I  should 
say  the  Manchu  is  indistinguishable  in  character 
from  the  Peking  Chinaman,  the  Peking  China- 
man from  the  northern,  the  northern  from  the 
central,  and  the  central  from  the  southern.  In 
other  words,  they  all  run  into  each  other,  just 
as  a  Russian  runs  into  a  Pole,  a  Pole  into  an 


274       PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS     [chap,  xiv 

Austrian,  and  thence  into  a  German,  Dutch- 
man, Englishman,  and  American.  To  put  it  in 
another  way,  if  you  begin  to  distinguish  at  all, 
you  must  first  decide  whether  you  are  going  to 
split  hairs  or  cleave  mountains,  for  every  single 
Chinese  village  differs  in  character  from  the  next 
one  adjoining.  The  broad  lines  of  distinction 
must  be  taken  in  another  way,  and  in  order  to 
get  any  real  idea  of  how  a  Chinaman  differs  from 
ourselves,  we  must  therefore  ignore  petty  details 
both  in  ourselves  and  in  them,  and  see  if  there 
are  any  main  features  of  an  unmistakable  kind. 
Perhaps  the  easiest  way  to  do  this  would  be  to 
go  about  it  the  other  way,  and  try  to  see  our- 
selves as  others  see  us.  The  average  Chinese 
does  not  trouble  himself  to  decide  from  our 
complexion  or  our  food  whether  we  are  Jews  or 
Christians  ;  from  the  vivacity  or  stupidity  of  our 
manner,  whether  we  are  Latins  or  Teutons ; 
from  our  readiness  to  fib  or  our  smugness, 
whether  we  are  Russians  or  George  Washingtons 
in  disguise.  No  !  in  Empire  days  he  lumped 
us  all  together  as  "  foreign  devils  "  or  "  bar- 
barians "  from  the  West,  who  wore  tight-fitting 
clothes  instead  of  baggy  ones  ;  who  had  long 
noses  and  deep-sunken  eyes,  mop-like  hair  instead 
of  a  pigtail ;  who  ate  ox-meat,  cheese,  and 
other  coarse  things  instead  of  rice  and  a  scrap 
of  pork  or  fish' — and  smelt  strong  accordingly  ; 
who  often  assumed  a  bullying  attitude  and 
were  prone  to  violence  when  misunderstandings 
occurred  ;  who  got  drunk  ;  and  so  on,  and  so 
on.  Of  course  now  the  pigtail  has  gone  by  the 
board,  and  mop-like  hair  is  fashionable,  as  also 
are  many  features  in  the  foreign  food,  dress,  and 
(sad  to  say)  want  of  good  manners. 

The  general  reader  will  soon  get  confused  if  he 
is  told  that  a  Cantonese  will  scrupulously  burn 
his  incense  outside  his  front  door  at  7  p.m., 


DIFFICULTIES  IN   SPECIFICATION         276 

whilst  a  Pekingese  will  see  his  own  grandmother 
anything  but  blessed  before  he  will  sacrifice  to 
her  coffin.  Examples  of  this  sort  might  be 
multiplied  and  diversified  by  thousands.  The 
man  in  the  street  does  not  particularly  want  to 
know  that  the  pigtail  was  only  introduced  270 
years  ago,  and  was  not  Chinese  at  all,  but 
essentially  a  Manchu  characteristic.  All  he 
sees  is  that  there  is  a  vast  tract  of  country  as 
big  as  Europe,  inhabited  by  400,000,000  of 
yellow-skinned  men  and  women  with  swarms 
of  half-naked  children  who  are  still  apt  to  yell 
out  opprobrious  epithets  at  Europeans.  These 
people  squat  on  the  ground  as  often  as  they  sit 
on  chairs  ;  are  totally  indifferent  about  air  and 
smells  ;  shovel  their  food  down  with  chopsticks  ; 
are  always  scratching  their  persons ;  have 
slobbery  mouths  and  plenty  of  vermiin ;  get 
the  best  of  every  bargain ;  seem  to  tell  a  lie 
whenever  they  speak  at  all ;  wear  Jim  Crow 
suits  of  clothes  when  they  abandon  their  native 
costume ;  are  reputed  to  drown  their  babies ;  still 
smoke  opium  when  they  can  get  it ;  are  supposed 
to  practise  the  most  bizarre  immorality;  never 
wash;  etc.,  etc.  These,  and  other  points  like 
them,  exhibit  the  broad  lines  of  imaginary 
Chinese  character,  and  it  is  for  us  now  to  see 
how  far  they  are  true. 

1.  A  Chinaman  is  universally  considered  to  be 
a  liar.  And  so  he  is.  But,  after  a  few  years  of 
initiation,  I  never  found  much  difficulty  in 
extracting  the  truth  from  any  Chinaman,  whether 
milkman  or  mandarin.  Not  only  so,' — I  always 
felt  great  confidence  in  the  truthfulness  of  my 
own  servants,  though  they  often  popped  out 
sundry  lies.  We  have  our  own  lies — divorce- 
court  lies,  club  lies,  society  lies,  husband-and- 
wife  lies,  and  so  on.  The  distinction  is  that  we 
lie  with  a  different  motive.  A  Chinaman  gener- 
20 


276      PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS      [chap,  xiv 

ally  lies  in  order  to  get  some  petty  pecuniary 
advantage,  to  save  trouble,  to  conceal  neglect, 
to  avoid  being  impolite,  or  to  spite  an  enemy. 
We  lie  in  order  to  keep  up  conventional  ideas  of 
honour  and  virtue,  to  save  our  relations  from 
pain  or  disgrace,  from  a  feeling  of  esprit  de  corps, 
and  so  on.  But  we  know  the  measure  of  our 
own  lies  ;  we  instinctively  apply  the  grain  or 
the  bucket  of  salt  where  we  feel  it  is  required  ; 
the  shock  is  broken  ;  we  all  do  things  and  feel 
things  in  the  same  way  ;  the  motive  is  familiar. 
But  with  the  luckless  Chinaman  the  conditions 
presented  to  us  are  new  and  abrupt.  He  does 
his  lying  in  a  different  way  altogether ;  and  so 
we  call  him  a  liar.  He  calls  us  liars  too,  and 
believes  it ;  if  not  in  money  matters,  at  all 
events  in  "  diplomacy."  He  is  not  so  nice  and 
particular  about  the  truth  as  we  think  we  are  : 
and  that  is  about  the  measure  of  my  condemi- 
nation.  On  the  other  hand,  he  is  not  nearly  so 
hypocritical ;    but  he  objects  to  "  losing  face." 

2.  A  Chinaman  is  thought  to  be  a  thief.  The 
"  chit  "  system  is  universal  in  China,  so  that 
pocket-money  is  unnecessary.  I  see  this  very 
year  (1916)  that  efforts  are  being  made  to  cur- 
tail the  chit  habit.  A  "  chit  "  is  a  pencil  scrawl 
on  a  piece  of  paper,  naming  (in  any  form)  a  sum 
of  mioney,  which  is  "  collected  "  from  the  com- 
pradore  or,  as  Anglo-Indians  say,  the  "  butler  " 
once  a  month  :  it  may  be  10  cents  for  a  drink, 
or  it  may  be  for  £25  lost  at  cards.  I  always 
kept  the  safe  locked,  possessed  no  jewellery 
I  had  not  always  on,  and  never  locked  up 
anything  but  m.oney  and  important  papers ; 
particularly  I  never  locked  up  wine  or  cigars. 
During  the  whole  course  of  my  life  in  China 
(with  one  notable  exception,  when  a  thief  at 
an  inn  walked  off  with  me  and  my  bed  in 
my  sleep,  deposited  me  in  a  handy  spot,   and 


A.D.  1870-1895]  THE  MOTE  AND  THE  BEAM    277 

extracted  a  valuable  fur  coat  from  underneath 
me),  I  was  never  robbed  of  anything.  I  have 
several  times  been  menaced  with  violence  by 
men  who  appeared  to  be  thieves,  but  who 
perhaps  were  policemen  or  "  watchers  "  ;  yet  I 
got  oft  by  various  devices,  such  as  firing  an  old 
pistol,  or  pointing  a  candlestick  at  the  robbers  ; 
and  I  have  missed  silk  handkerchiefs  (as  we  miss 
umbrellas  in  England)  occasionally.  I  usually 
had  at  least  a  dozen  servants  and  retainers 
wherever  I  was,  and  if  any  of  them  stole  my 
property  I  was  never  conscious  of  it.  Of  course 
I  took  reasonable  precautions,  as  everyone  ought 
to  do ;  if  a  person  deposits  tempting  articles 
in  tempting  places  he  must  expect  to  lose  them, 
even  in  a  country  like  Norway,  where  simple 
honesty  is  (or  was,  forty  years  ago)  carried  to 
naivete ;  but  I  possessed  few  tempting  articles, 
no  articles  I  did  not  need  to  use,  and  these  were 
always  in  their  proper  place,  so  that  I  did  not 
lose  them;  or,  what  is  equally  satisfactory  to 
a  sensible  man,  was  not  aware  of  it.  I  well 
remicmber  once  asking  my  permanent  "  boy  " 
how  it  was  that  so  many  of  my  forks  had  a  stain. 
He  said  it  was  done  by  various  "  coolies,"  or 
under-servants,  each  of  whomx  in  succession 
invariably  "  tested "  the  electro  on  his  own 
account,  merely  as  a  business-like  act.  On 
another  occasion,  when  I  wished  to  lock  up  the 
same  electro  box,  he  said  :  "  Not  at  all ;  if  you 
lock  it  up,  someone  will  mistake  the  contents 
for  silver,  and  carry  the  whole  box  away,  or 
break  it  open ;  whereas,  if  you  leave  it  open, 
each  thief  will  be  able  to  ascertain  for  himself 
that  it  is  not  worth  stealing." 

3.  Chinamen  are.  always  regarded  as  being 
dirty.  This  I  deny  ;  or,  rather,  I  qualify.  In 
the  warm  parts  of  China  a  Chinaman,  clothes 
and  all,  is  much  less  offensive  to  the  senses  (my 


278       PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS     [chap,  xiv 

senses)  than  an  Englishman  of  the  same  class, 
clothes  and  all.  In  the  cold  north,  where  fuel 
is  dear  and  scarce,  the  custom  prevails  in  winter 
of  piling  on  clothes  upon  clothes,  and  rarely 
changing  them.  In  Mongolia  I  fell  in  partly 
with  local  custom,  and  neither  took  off  my 
clothes  nor  washed  any  part  of  my  person  but 
my  hands  and  face  for  a  whole  month.  No 
vermin  will  at  any  time  touch  m^e,  so  my  case 
is  perhaps  special ;  but  I  noticed  everyone  else 
near  me,  Chinese  and  European,  "  grew  vermin," 
to  use  the  local  term.  Still,  it  was  too  cold  to 
take  any  garment  off  for  long ;  and  so,  instead 
of  undertaking  ablutions,  the  others  all  em- 
ployed their  energies,  at  leisure  momients,  in  the 
same  way  that  monkeys  do,  with  a  view  to 
retaining  the  exclusive  use  of  their  own  skin  for 
themselves.  In  the  south  of  China  it  is  the 
custom  amongst  the  working  classes  to  swab, 
with  a  wet  rag  or  dishcloth,  as  much  of  the  body 
as  can  be  got  at  without  taking  the  trousers  off. 
This,  extended  to  all  the  body,  is  really  all  a 
man  requires  in  any  part  of  the  world,  and  in 
any  case  it  is  more  than  our  own  "  working 
classes "  habitually  do.  The  Hakka  Chinese, 
in  the  extrem^e  south,  male  and  female,  properly 
wash  the  whole  body  every  day  of  their  lives. 
But,  apart  from  washing,  the  Chinese  do  not  eat 
such  strong  food  as  we  do,  and  therefore,  even 
if  they  are  "  nasty  "  in  their  habits,  they  are 
not  exactly  rank  and  dirty- — i.e.  not  ranker  and 
dirtier  than  we  are  ourselves.  Their  nastiness 
is  in  form  rather  than  fact ;  for  instance,  my 
servants  used  at  a  pinch  to  wipe  my  dishes  with 
their  sleeve  or  coat-tail ;  blow  down  the  spout 
of  my  tea-pot  in  their  anxiety  not  to  keep  me 
waiting  for  a  drink ;  themselves  take  a  swig  from 
the  spout ;  draw  the  said  coat-sleeve  across  their 
noses;  wipe  their  hands  or  faces  after  washing 


A.D.  1870-1895]  EACH  MAN'S  PECK  OF  DIRT  279 

with  a  pair  of  trousers,  a  coat-tail,  or  maybe  the 
lining  of  a  hat ;  spend  hours  in  hunting  for  body- 
vermin  (a  favourite  Chinese  pastime)  ;  and  so 
on.  But,  for  all  that,  I  do  not  call  them  dirty 
beyond  the  ordinary  rancidity  of  poverty  all 
over  the  world.  The  saying  :  "  The  Japanese 
wash  their  bodies,  the  Chinese  wash  their  clothes" 
is  fairly  true.  Nations  differ  in  the  form  of  their 
cleanliness.  For  instance,  no  matter  to  what 
continental  country  you  go,  you  will  get  more 
liberal  supplies  of  table-linen  than  you  will  in 
any  British  steamer,  hotel,  or  eating-house. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  country  where 
window-curtains  look  so  clean  and  neat  as  in 
England.  I  do  not  think  there  is  any  country 
in  the  world  where  the  "  working  classes  "  dress 
so  dirtily  as  in  England  ;  nor  is  there  any  where 
the  homes  are  kept  so  neat  by  the  same  dirty 
men's  wives. 

4.  The  Chinese  are  said  to  be  ungrateful. 
This  I  totally  deny.  The  fidelity  of  Chinese 
servants  is  really  extraordinary,  if  they  are 
treated  with  even  moderate  sympathy  and  con- 
sideration ;  and  this,  whether  it  be  a  native  or 
a  foreign  master  who  is  concerned.  Nothing 
makes  a  more  powerful  im.pression  on  the 
Chinese  mind  than  impartial  justice.  To  them 
it  is  a  grand  sight  to  see  wages  paid  out  with- 
out deductions  on  the  "  scale,"  or  nibblings  of 
any  kind  ;  to  see  the  master  refusing  presents 
and  bribes — which  last,  indeed,  few  persons  dare 
even  offer  ;  to  observe  that  he  will  not  "  run 
up  "  a  bill  for  compensation  in  cases  of  riot. 
When  they  begin  to  get  used  to  the  cold  mathe- 
matical precision  of  the  British  mind,  going 
straight  for  its  object  without  fear  or  favour, 
they  begin  to  feel  that  they  are  in  the  presence 
of  a  weird,  strange  being  of  a  superhuman  kind. 
But  again,  when  they  find  that,  in  addition  to 


280       PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS     [chap,  xiv 

this  chilly  justice,  they  are  positively  receiving 
some  tenderness  or  consideration,  such  as  gra- 
tuitous medical  aid,  free  assistance  in  righting 
a  wrong,  the  present  of  a  coffin  to  their  mothers, 
and  such-like  things  indicative  of  disinterested- 
ness, they  positively  overflow  with  feelings  of 
respectful  gratitude.  I  have  seen  a  pack  of 
cunning-looking  Chinamen  blubber  like  babies 
in  taking  leave  of  their  master,  and  the  more 
impassive  he  looked  the  more  they  blubbered. 
It  is  this  gratitude  for  kindness ,  that  often 
deceives  missionaries  into  a  belief  that  "  faith  " 
has  been  aroused  in  the  Celestial  ixiind.  Even 
officials  of  the  most  rascally  description  show 
great  fidelity  to  a  friend.  On  one  occasion  I 
procured  the  dismissal  of  a  tolerably  high  man- 
darin for  corruption  ;  but,  feeling  rather  sorry 
for  the  man,  I  sent  him  a  gorgeous  but  useless 
silver  presentation  epergne  packed  in  a  box  I 
had  never  even  opened,  and  which  was  always 
getting  into  my  way.  He  also  never  opened  it, 
probably  thinking  I  was  playing  him  some  dirty 
farewell  trick,  or  was  inferentially  sneering  at  his 
misfortune  ;  but,  some  months  afterAvards,  when 
he  had  got  to  his  own  province,  I  received  from 
him  a  letter,  written  in  the  best  of  good  taste, 
avoiding  all  allusion  to  public  matters,  and 
sending  me  some  little  "  literary  "  paintings  of  a 
most  artistic  kind  done  by  himself,  evidently  at 
the  cost  of  great  labour.  He  had  divined  cor- 
rectly that  no  other  "  presents  "  would  be  appre- 
ciated, or  even  accepted.  On  yet  another 
occasion  I  asked  a  high  official  to  put  in  writing 
some  facts  touching  a  matter  in  which  both  he 
and  I  had  been  deceived.  He  said,  "  X.  has 
certainly  behaved  badly  ;  but  he  was  my  friend 
when  he  did  it,  as  you  are  now  ;  and  I  would  no 
more  tell  you  in  writing  that  he  did  it  than  I 
would  tell  him  that  you  asked  me  to  give  infor- 


A.D.  1870-1895]  GOOD  POINTS  IN  CHINAMEN   281 

mation  against  him."  In  fact,  there  is  a  very 
high  standard  of  both  gratitude  and  honour 
amongst  friends  in  China,  in  spite  of  treacheries 
and  rogueries.  I  cannot  recall  a  case  where  any 
Chinese  friend  has  left  me  in  the  lurch  or  played 
me  a  dirty  trick ;  and  few  of  us  can  say  the  same 
of  our  own  colleagues  and  countrymen. 

5.  Chinese  politeness  is  generally  termed  hollow. 
Chinamen  are  not  so  effusive  and  formal  as  the 
Japanese  (old  system),  and  on  the  other  hand  they 
are  much  more  ceremoniousthan  even  the  French ; 
of  course  the  Republic  has  affected  their  out- 
ward bearing.  It  is  only  given  to  the  few  in 
any  race  of  mankind  to  possess  the  instinctive 
and  inborn  politeness  which  comes  of  kindness 
taking  its  own  natural  form.  For  most  of  us 
fixed  formalities  are  necessary,  just  as  the  letter 
of  the  Law  is  found  indispensable,  with  or  with- 
out the  rigid  dogmas  of  religion,  to  restrain  the 
vast  majority  of  persons  who  are  not  sufficiently 
well-balanced  by -gift  or  training  to  be  compe- 
tent to  set  up  and  adhere  to  their  own  standard 
of  right.  In  this  sense,  therefore,  the  Chinese 
politeness  is  hollow;  but  it  achieves  its  object, 
and,  being  under  the  old  Confucian  ideals  abso- 
lutely fixed,  it,  like  the  rules  of  the  confessional, 
saves  the  trouble  of  thinking,  and  prevents  men 
from  the  gaucherie  of  external  "  sin  "  in  form. 
Chinese  male  simperings  and  our  own  "  feline 
amenities  "  are  cast  in  much  the  same  mould. 
The  stupid,  gawky  clownishness,  or  rudeness, 
of  the  English  rustic  or  factory  hand  is  quite 
unknown  in  China.  There  are  no  ^'s  to  leave 
out,  and  no  mian  is  ashamed  either  of  his  own 
relations  or  of  his  friends.  There  is  a  natural 
ease  of  manner  amongst  all  degrees,  which  the 
"  classified  "  British  mind  cannot  even  conceive. 
It  is  akin  to  the  outspoken  frankness  and  ready 
wit  of  the  French,  which  contrasts  so  painfully 


282       PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS     [chap,  xiv 

with  our  self-consciousness,  starchy  snobbish- 
ness, and  mauvaise  honte.  The  Chinese  are 
(unhke  the  Japanese)  much  given  to  brawhng 
and  coarse  language  ;  they  are  as  badly  off  for 
respectable  adjectives  as  Tommy  Atkins  him- 
self. In  a  word,  they  are  not  at  heart  so  kindly 
and  sympathetic  as  we  are,  but  they  certainly 
are  more  sprightly  and  polite,  and  they  rarely 
"  take  social  liberties." 

6.  I  think  it  must  be  conceded  that  the 
Chinese  are  cruel.  Nearly  all  domestic  animals 
are  treated  without  any  consideration  whatever 
• — not  of  an  interested  nature.  If  kindness  or 
tenderness  is  shown,  a  great  parade  is  made 
about  it.  Children  are  rarely  checked  in  their 
cruelty  to  mice,  flies,  and  such  creatures. 
Buddhism  has  certainly  had  some  mollifying 
effect,  even  upon  the  Chinese  heart ;  for  instance, 
there  are  societies  for  "  preserving  life,"  and 
dens  or  keeps  for  "  letting  animals  go  "  in  ;  and 
some  people' — especially  Mongols' — pay  attention 
to  Buddha's  precepts  about  not  taking  even 
the  smallest  life,  even  to  the  extent  of  killing  a 
flea.  But  all  that  is  a  mere  drop  in  the  ocean 
of  cruelty,  or  rather  callousness.  Perhaps  one 
reason  is  that  the  standard  of  bodily  comfort 
is  so  low  in  China  that  the  slightest  divergence 
from  it  in  an  unfavourable  direction  means 
cruelty.  If  an  ordinary  Chinaman  lives  over  a 
sewer  or  a  pig-sty,  as  I  have  often  had  to  do  in 
Chinese  inns  ;  if  he  feeds  on  coarse  grain,  wears 
rags,  sleeps  on  the  dank  floor,  and  possesses 
only  5s.  worth  of  property  in  the  world,  all 
told  ;  how  are  you  to  make  criminals  object  to 
the  rigours  of  prison  life  ?  Yet  it  is  a  fact,  in 
spite  of  this  specious  way  of  putting  it,  that  the 
Chinese  seem  positively  to  gloat  over  misery. 
Where  is  there  a  country  in  the  world  where 
you  will  see,  as  you  might  have  seen  in  Shanghai 


A.D.  1870-1916]  CRUELTY  ALMOST  PRUSSIAN  283 

twenty  years  ago,  prisoners,  surrounded  by  a 
jeering  crowd,  starving  to  death  in  the  sun  and 
rain,  suspended  by  the  neck  for  days  and  nights 
so  that  the  toe-tips  just  touch  the  floor  ?  Where 
was  there  ever  a  country  (except  perhaps  Bok- 
hara) where  maggots  were  positively  bred  up 
to  bore  into  the  wounds  of  chained  prisoners  ? 
Tlie  callous  way  in  which  beggars  are  left  to 
die  in  the  public  streets  ;  the  brutal  treatment 
of  foreigners  when  at  the  mercy  of  a  mob  ;  the 
contemptuous  ignoring  of  drowning  men  ;  the 
lingering  executions  ;  the  swarms  of  lepers  left 
to  rot  on  the  roads  ;  the  tyranny  of  gaolers  ;• — 
all  these  and  many  other  things  go  to  show  that 
the  Chinese  are  undoubtedly  as  low  down  as  the 
Prussians  in  the  scale  of  downright  cruelty.  It  is 
but  right  to  add,  however,  that  a  great  many 
official  cruelties  were  denounced  a  dozen  years 
ago  by  the  humane  viceroy  Liu  K'un-yih  and 
others,  and  some  very  drastic  changes  have 
since  been  made. 

7.  As  to  mercantile  honour,  in  spite  of  occa- 
sional lapses,  such  as  occur  in  all  countries,  it  is 
so  universally  admitted  that  Chinese  credit 
stands  deservedly  high,  that  I  need  not  say 
another  word  about  it,  except  that  unhappily 
it  has  quite  recently  somewhat  degenerated 
owing  to  the  competition  of  crooked  foreign 
traders  eager  for  business.  It  is  also  a  curious 
fact  that,  although  Government  credit  vis-a-vis 
of  the  people  stands  so  low  that  it  could  not 
well  go  lower,  as  regards  foreign  obligations 
it  is,  subject  to  political  risks,  as  good  as  that 
of  almost  any  country.  It  is  quite  pathetic  to 
watch  the  extraordinary  assiduity  with  which 
funds  are  collected  for  the  service  of  the 
foreign  loans  ;  and  even  touching  to  read  of 
coolie  caravans  trudging  laboriously  along  with 
loads  of  silver  all  the  way  from  Shan  Si  to  the 


284       PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS     [chap,  xiv 

banks  of  Shanghai,  where  the  buUion  is  paid 
into  the  credit  of  the  Customs  treasury  for  the 
benefit  of  overfed  financiers  in  Europe.  Nearly 
all  foreigners  who  have  ever  been  employed  by 
Chinese  have  noted  the  scrupulous  punctuality 
with  which  their  salaries  are  paid,  at  all  events 
when  it  is  possible :  the  national  honour  seems 
very  sensitive  upon  this  point.  At  times  the 
treasury  may  be  hopelessly  depleted,  and  under- 
lings, through  whose  hands  the  money  passes, 
will  always  endeavour  to  make  a  "  squeeze  " 
on  the  scale,  or  on  the  exchange ;  but  that 
does  not  seriously  affect  the  main  consideration 
herein  indicated. 

8.  "  Morals  "  is  of  course  a  vague  and  compre- 
hensive word,  but  I  use  it  here,  advisedly,  in  the 
contracted  sense  of  popular  English  usage. 
The  Chinese  are  undoubtedly  a  libidinous  people, 
with  a  decided  inclination  to  be  ''  nasty  "  about 
it.  Herein  they  differ  from  the  Japanese,  who 
are  excessively  lax,  but  very  rarely  raffines. 
A  check  is  placed  upon  this  national  Chinese 
characteristic  by  the  almost  universal  practice 
of  early  marriage.  Moreover,  90  per  cent,  of 
the  population  are  too  poor  even  to  think  of 
any  further  sexual  indulgence  than  the  posses- 
sion of  a  single  wife  affords.  Among  the  well- 
to-do  classes  the  civilian  mandarins,  who  in 
Manchu  times  never  served  in  their  own  pro- 
vince, are  often  forced  to  lead  a  secluded  and 
sedentary  life,  and  in  most  cases  prefer  to  leave 
their  first  or  legitimMe  wives  at  home,  partly  on 
account  of  the  dangers  of  travel,  and  partly  in 
order  to  look  after  the  family  graves,  docu- 
ments, and  honour.  Hence  concubines  are  in 
these  cases  almost  recognised  as  a  necessity. 
Most  rich  mandarins,  however,  go  beyond  neces- 
sity, and  they  are  the  most  profligate  class.  Next 
come  the  wealthy  merchants;   but  these,  when 


A.D.  1870-1895]       INCONTINENT    SINNERS        285 

living  at  home,  are  naturally  more  bound  to 
decency  by  family  ties  than  are  the  mandarins 
who  move  about  to  temporary  habitations  with 
their  servants  and  concubines.  Still,  amongst 
all  classes  and  ranks  the  "  moral  sense "  is 
decidedly  weak,  and  there  is  hardly  a  Manchu  or 
a  Chinese  living  possessed  of  that  form  of 
"  Puritanical "  virtue  seen  in  som.e  Europeans,^ — 
that  condition  of  mind  which  frowns  at  a  ribald 
or  even  a  risque  story,  sternly  refuses  any  sexual 
temptation  that  may  offer,  or  forces  itself  to  be 
content  with  a  chivalrous  platonic  attitude.  The 
depressing  spectacle  of  2,000,000  old  maids  in 
England  (the  proportion  would  be  20,000,000  in 
China)  has  no  counterpart  there.  Neither  man 
nor  woman  exists  in  China  to  whom  the  function- 
ing of  his  or  her  own  nature  remains  a  sealed 
mystery.  Of  Chinese  women  it  is  less  easy  to 
speak  than  of  men,  for  (subject  to  the  effect  of 
"  progress  "  during  the  last  twenty  years)  nearly 
all  respectable  ones  lead  a  purdah  life;  but  to 
judge  by  the  language  of  novels,  what  one  reads  of 
in  law  cases,  and  sees  in  street  life ;  by  the  jealous 
behaviour  of  men,  and  the  brutally  cruel  customs 
in  vogue  for  punishing  all  female  lapses,  "  every 
(Chinese)  woman  is  at  heart  a  rake,"  and  pre- 
cautions are  taken  accordingly  by  their  lords 
and  masters.  Some  provinces  have  decidedly 
more  "  conscience  "  than  others.  The  Cantonese, 
though  exceedingly  libidinous,  disapprove  of 
"  artificial  vice  "  of  all  kinds.  On  the  other 
hand,  Fuh  Kien  has  an  infamous  reputation, 
possilDly  owing  to  its  ancient  connection  with 
traders  from  beyond  the  seas  ;  and  undoubtedly 
the  morals  of  that  province  are  made  worse  by 
the  fearful  prevalence  of  female  infanticide,  and 
the  consequent  comparative  scarcity  of  women. 
The  northerners,  more  especially  the  crapulous 
leisured  classes  of  Peking,  used  openly  to  flaunt 


286       PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS     [chap,  xiv 

the  worst  of  vices,  and  I  have  not  heard  of 
improvement.  No  doubt  Tartar  influence  has 
had  its  effect,  for  from  Bokhara  to  Corea  all 
Tartars  seem  fashioned  from  one  mould  in  this 
respect.  Offences  which  with  us  are  regarded 
as  almost  capital — in  any  case  as  infam.ous 
crimes' — do  not  count  for  as  much  as  petty  mis- 
demeanours in  China  ;  not  even  in  Canton,  where 
disapproved.  This  easy-going  view  works  both 
ways  :  it  obtains  for  the  Chinese  the  mistaken 
reputation  of  universally  indulging  in  vile  gratifi- 
cations ;  but  such  indulgences,  by  the  mere  fact 
that  they  are  no  crimes,  soon  run  themselves 
out  harmlessly  in  youth,  while  ridicule  suffices  to 
do  the  rest ;  and  what  an  old  scamp  does  in  his 
harem  concerns  no  one  but  himself  and  his 
slaves.  Anyhow,  there  is  no  hum.bug,  conceal- 
ment, or  Mrs.  Grundyism.  In  sum,  I  am 
disposed  to  say  that  the  Chinese,  taken  as  a 
whole,  are  not  much,  if  any,  worse  than  Euro- 
peans ;  in  each  case,  some  countries  (or  pro- 
vinces) being  greater  sinners  than  others. 

9.  The  Chinese  do  not  treat  children  well. 
Japan  has  been  justly  described  as  the  paradise 
of  children.  China  is  the  reverse.  Fathers  and 
mothers,  especially  rich  ones,  of  course  pet  and 
fondle  pretty  children  of  both  sexes,  and  they 
like  to  see  them  well  dressed.  Also  fathers  of 
old  or  official  family  are  careful  to  have  their 
sons  well  trained,  according  to  native  ideas  of 
propriety.  But  the  m.asses  of  fathers  ignore 
their  daughters  altogether,  or  regard  them  as 
impedimenta  of  the  female  department,  to  be 
kept  safely  out  of  the  way,  and  dry,  like  any 
other  indispensable  stores.  Within  the  past 
dozen  years,  however,  female  education  has  been 
largely  introduced,  and  women's  "rights"  have 
broadened  as  much  as  their  former  loose  and 
airy  clothing  has  tightened.     Sons  are  viewed 


A.D.  1870-1895]  DWELLERS  IN  GLASS  HOUSES  287 

as  links,  spiritually  connecting  the  person  with 
one's  ancestors  and  futurity.  The  American 
idea  of  children — and  indeed  they  are  often  pert, 
'*  marred "  little  creatures,  brought  up  under 
exaggerated  ideas  of  liberty- — is  monstrous  in 
Chinese  eyes.  No  such  sight  existed  in  imperial 
China  as  a  father  sitting  down  to  dinner  to  eat, 
smoke,  and  chat  with  his  sons,  and  even  to 
exchange  "  views."  The  only  approach  to  such 
easy  familiarity  was  when  a  busy  shopman  and 
his  sons,  usually  with  other  relatives  or  employes, 
sat  round  one  table  for  convenience'  or  economy's 
sake,  and  snatched  a  hasty  meal  by  shovelling  rice 
down  together  from  one  big  dish  ;  but  even  then 
the  sons  had  to  mind  their  p's  and  q^s:  to  sit 
down  before  a  father  is  "  seated  unco'  right,"  or, 
as  each  in  turn  picks  a  bit  with  his  chopsticks  from 
the  meat  or  condiment  plate,  to  "  bag"  the  best 
piece  of  meat  out  of  the  tureen  in  a  playful  way, 
would  still  be  an  outrage  on  the  paternal  dig- 
nity. A  fortiori  a  wife,  still  less  a  daughter,  can 
(or  could)  never  join  the  festive  board  on  even 
terms,  as  with  us.  During  the  drafting  of  law 
reform  ten  years  ago,  several  prominent  viceroys 
strongly  protested  against  the  introduction  of 
so  much  personal  or  individual  right  at  the  cost 
of  the  old  patriarchal  authority,  and  of  the  hus- 
band's ancient  privileges.  Mothers  are  essen- 
tially "  spankers  "  ;  even  if  kind  at  times,  their 
tempers  are  so  ill-balanced  that  they  are  apt 
to  scold  and  slap  on  the  slightest  provocation. 
The  cries  of  the  child  only  feed  their  spite,  and 
urge  them  on  to  downright  cruelty,  as  though 
"  inebriated  with  the  exuberance  of  their  own 
verbosity  "  and  screams.  Fathers  do  not  beat 
children  much  ;  their  castigations  are  reserved 
for  their  wives.  When  a  boy  gets  beyond  the 
"spanking"  age,  his  mother  has  to  treat  him 
as  a  superior  being,  and  the  father  would  not 


288       PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS    [chap,  xiv 

tolerate  any  further  beatings  of  the  son  except 
under  his  own  authority.  Girls  were  steadily 
beaten  and  bullied  by  their  mothers  from  wean- 
ing time  until  they  were  women,  when  they 
became  a  jprey  to  something  worse- — mothers-in- 
law  ;  I  cannot  say  if  the  Republic  has  worked 
improvement.  It  is  by  no  means  rare,  however, 
for  a  fatRer,  or  mother,  or  both,  to  show  exces- 
sive affection  for  one  or  all  of  their  children. 
There  are  kind  good  hearts  in  China,  as  else- 
where. I  am  only  speaking  of  "  averages  "  as 
seen  by  myself.  The  patria  potestas  as  it  obtains 
in  China  is  totally  foreign  to  our  English  ideas ; 
of  European  nations  the  French  alone,  and  to  a 
limited  extent  the  Spanish  and  Italians,  have 
any  vestiges  of  it  left  :  not  many.  No  doubt 
it  is  found  best,  so  far  as  and  wherever  it  exists, 
for  the  country  concerned,  for  we  must  assume 
that  all  institutions  become  such  or  remain  such 
because  approved.  Nolumus  mutare,  etc.  But 
the  product  in  China  is  not  always  pleasing  to  us. 
The  very  words  used  in  politeness  for  "  your 
father"  and  "your  mother"  show  us  what  the 
Chinese  think  :■ — "  your  honourable  severe"  and 
*'  your  honourable  tender  one."  In  China  chil- 
dren certainly  romp  about  with  great  freedom ; 
but  so  do  the  pigs  ;  they  are  none  the  less 
capriciously  treated  and  cuffed  about :  they  fear 
rather  than  respect  or  love  their  parents. 

10.  Temperance  in  "  self  supply  "  is  a  Chinese 
virtue  ;  in  that  respect  we  are  inferior  to  them 
in  quite  a  disgusting  degree.  Drunkenness  is  so 
rare  that  it  is  not  regarded  as  disgraceful  at  all,  but 
rather  as  good  form,  to  get  tipsy  at  a  feast;  just 
as  with  us  the  act  of  kissing  is  so  little  connected 
with  lust  that  it  is  quite  "  the  thing  "  to  do  it 
in  public.  But  a  Chinaman  thinks  it  even  in- 
decent to  use  the  word  "  kiss,"  and  our  walking 
out  with  women  to  be  barefaced  immorality  ; 


A.D.  1870-1895]  INDULGENCE  IN  DRINK,  ETC.  289 

but  here  the  RepubHc  has  worked  a  change,  and 
women  not  only  have  more  freedom,  but  seem  to 
use  it  discreetly.     Strong  drink  is  sometimes  dis- 
approved of  in  political  or  economical  philosophy 
because  it  causes   anger   and  a  waste  of  good 
grain  ;    never  because  men  get  drunk  :    accord- 
ingly,   in   times    of    scarcity   distilling   is    often 
forbidden    or   checked.     In   the   extreme   north 
(especially  Manchuria)  liquor  is  considered  almost 
a  necessity,  and  there  is  a  good  deal  of  red-nosed 
tippling    among    the    well-to-do.     Occasionally 
soldiers  get  flushed  and  violent,  but  that  is  on 
the    same    principle    that    they    eat    criminals' 
hearts    and    livers — to    gain    pluck.     Notwith- 
standing all  this,  in  a  word,  neither  drunkenness 
nor  "  drinking  "  exists  in  China  :   the  exceptions 
are  a  minimum  quantity,  and  if  a  falling  off  has 
taken  place  recently,  it  is  probably  to  counter- 
balance the  abstention  from  opium.     In  eating 
there  is  no  question  of  indulgence  in  the  case  of 
95  per  cent,  of  the  population  :    a  man  shovels 
down  all  he  can  get  for  his  money,  and  if  he  can 
afford  to  buy  more  than  is  necessary,  a  little 
extra   rice,   millet,   or  buckwheat  does  him  no 
harm.     "  Indulgence  "  only  exists  amongst  the 
mandarin  and  rich  mercantile  classes,  and  their 
chief  idea  is  to   "  feed   up   to  the   occasion  "  ; 
hence  the  enormous  consumption  of  expensive 
aphrodisiacs,  real  and  imaginary,  such  as  bird's- 
nest  jelly,  sea-slugs,  ginseng,  cats'  organs,  deers' 
horns,  and  a  host  of  other  trumpery  and  even 
disgusting  objects.     I  have  often  been  asked  by 
mandarins  why  their  powers  were  failing,  and 
what  they  ought  to  eat  in  order  to  raise  a  larger 
family,  or  at  least  to  "  take  steps  "  thereto. 

1 1 .  Industry  is  the  ruling  virtue  of  the  Chinese, 
from  the  top  of  the  scale  to  the  bottom,  but  with 
the  not  unreasonable  qualification  that  a  man 
must  be  working  for  himself.     No  one  is  more 


290       PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS     [chap,  xiv 

industrious  in  amassing  pelf  than  the  identical 
mandarin  who  neglects  to  bestir  himself  to  do 
justice.  No  one  works  better  (always)  than  the 
builder  or  artisan  on  a  piece  job,  or  worse 
(sometimes)  than  the  same  man  on  a  time  job. 
All  Chinese  (except  opium-sots  and  the  over- 
married)  are  risers  with  the  sun  ;  usually  before 
it.  Until  (in  very  recent  years)  kerosene  was 
introduced,  there  was  no  artificial  light  worthy 
of  the  name  ;  hence  everyone  was  in  bed  by  six 
or  eight,  according  to  season.  If  the  days  in 
winter  were  as  short  as  with  us,  the  Chinese 
would  probably  have  adopted  the  lazy,  sleepy 
habits  of  the  last  generation  of  Russians  before 
night  workshops  came  into  vogue ;  but  the 
days  according  to  season  do  not  vary  much  in 
length,  especially  in  the  south  parts.  In  these 
circumstances,  it  is  no  great  virtue  to  get  up  at 
four  and  six,  or  even  at  two  or  three.  All 
Chinese  inns  are  in  full  swing  of  motion  two  hours 
before  daylight,  and  there  is  much  night  travel- 
ling in  parts.  A  Chinaman  works  hard  all  day, 
but  never  feverishly  ;  he  stops  for  an  occasional 
snack,  swig,  or  smoke,  and  is  always  ready  for 
a  running  chat.  The  tacit  principle  of  Chinese 
industry  is  to  neglect  all  secured  rights  and  aim 
at  more.  Thus,  a  man  will  work  well  for  £50  a 
year  ;  but  if  you  give  him  £1,000  to  do  the  same 
work,  he  will  probably  neglect  part  of  it  in  order 
to  turn  £50  more  in  some  fresh  way.  No  matter 
what  takes  place,  or  under  what  circumstances, 
a  Chinaman,  whatever  be  his  rank  or  position, 
at  once  sees  money  or  money-loss  in  it.  If  you 
give  him  a  free  passage,  he  smuggles  ;  but  a  free 
passage  alone  will  do,  if  the  smuggling  is  impos- 
sible ;  if  it  is  easy,  he  lets  his  friends  smuggle 
too.  A  classical  instance  occurred  last  (1916) 
summer,  when  the  Minister  of  Justice,  a  num- 
ber of  M.P.'s,  and   some  high  military  officers 


A.D.  1870-1895]  THE    HANDY    MAN  29i 

travelling    on    duty    from   Yiin    Nan,    were    all 
mixed  up  in  a  wholesale  smuggle  of  opium,*  vid 
Tonquin,  into  Shanghai.    If  nothing  else  occurs  to 
the  hunter  after  profitable  game,  there  is  chance 
of  compensation  after  a  disaster ;    hence  arson 
is  a  common  offence  in  these  days  of  insurance. 
If  you  give  him  a  present,  he  will  even  ask — if 
possible- — for  a  "  better  dollar  than  this  one," 
or  count  up  the  copper  cash  to  see  if  they  are  all 
good  and  sound  :   (copper  "cash"  are,  however, 
being  rapidly  ousted  in  favour  of  a  foreign  style 
coin  dubbed  "  a  copper  ").  If  a  mandarin  admits 
a  claim,  there  is  certain  to  be  a  hitch  in  the 
quality   and   weight   of  the   silver   before   you 
actually  encash  it,  and  all  attempts  to  reform 
the   currency   have   so   far  failed.     A   boatman 
delays  you  an  hour  because  "  fuel  is  cheap  here." 
In  a  v/ord,  the  whole  wits  of  nearly  every  living 
Chinaman  (and  woman)  seem  to  be  devoted  to 
turning  to  pecuniary  profit   every   incident   in 
which  he  has  had,  has,  or  may  have  a  hand,  direct 
or  indirect.     Accounts  are  kept  by  considerable 
traders  with  scrupulous  exactitude.     No  Chinese 
ever  needs  information  as  to  market  prices  or 
values  ;    or,  if  he  does,  he  knows  how  to  get  it 
without  having  to  trust  anybody.     In  short,  as 
traders  the  Chinese  are  easily  "  number  one." 

12.  We  talk  about  Jack  being  a  "  handy  man," 
but  he  must  take  points  from  a  Chinaman.  The 
usual  exceptions  excepted,  every  Chinese  knows 
the  time  without  a  watch  ;  can  at  a  pinch  buy, 
prepare,  and  cook  his  own  food  ;  wash,  patch, 
if  not  make  his  own  clothes  ;  judge  the  weather, 
till  the  fields,  carry  a  pole  and  its  load  ;  indicate 
the  north,  manoeuvre  a  punt,  sail  a  boat,  catch 
fish,  saddle  and  act  as  "  vet."  to  a  horse ; 
tackle  animals,  birds,  and  reptiles  of  all  kinds 
under  unexpected  circumstances ;    walk  or  ride 

1  See  page  204. 
21 


292       PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS     [chap,  xtv 

a  long  distance,  sleep  anywhere  at  any  moment, 
take  no  exercise  whatever  for  any  length  of 
time,  loaf  time  away  ;  gain  the  graces  of  any 
woman  of  any  nationality  (if  she  will  let  him) ; 
eat  anything,  go  anywhere,  remain  without 
change' — and  do  other  things  innumerable.  What 
a  Chinaman  cannot  do  may  be  summed  up  as 
follows  :  Shave  himself  ;  do  up  his  own  hair  (but 
since  the  abolition  of  pigtails  in  most  parts 
these  two  defects  have  become  obsolete)  ;  cure 
his  own  maladies  ;  keep  off  vermin  ;  fight  with 
his  fists  ;  manage  a  steamer  ;  keep  military  or 
naval  discipline  (Yiian  Shi-k'ai  led  the  way 
to  improvement  here  just  when  the  early  edition 
of  this  book  came  out)  ;  handle  trust  money 
honestly  ;  tell  a  plain,  unvarnished  story  ;  be 
punctual;  show  nerve  in  times  of  sudden  dan- 
ger; eat  cheese;  or  tolerate  a  female  "  master." 
The  complicated  question  of  Chinese  character 
does  not  permit  of  settlement  in  a  few  cursory 
pages,  but  the  above  will  at  least  serve  to  indi- 
cate the  general  impression  which  over  a  quarter 
of  a  century  of  residence  am^ong  Celestials  ended 
by  leaving  on  my  mind  ;  and  it  must  always  be 
remembered  that  the  Chinese  individual,  as  well 
as  the  Chinese  State,  is  still  in  the  crucible,  the 
amount  of  new  scvun  being  doubtful. 


CHAPTER    XV 

RELIGION   AND    REBELLION 

People  are  apt  to  confuse  themselves  by  first 
harking  back  upon  the  obsolete  historical  word 
religio,  the  very  derivation  of  which  is  contested 
and  obscure,  and  secondly  by  confusing  the  word 
"  piety  "  with  religion.  This  vagueness  leaves 
open  the  door  to  unlimited  argument,  the  total 
result  of  which  is  to  land  us  in  quite  as  foggy  a 
region  of  thought  as  that  in  which  most  men's 
actual  feelings  on  religion  generally  flounder. 
We  must  go  to  the  root  of  matters  at  once  and 
ask  ourselves  :  What  is  the  popular  view  and 
ordinary  effect  of  formal  religion  ?  With  us  in 
Great  Britain  the  first  thing  is  to  "  go  to  church," 
and  not  to  work  on  Sundays  ;  then  to  say  our 
prayers,  to  say  grace,  and  (in  a  progressive  string 
according  to  the  degree  of  our  piety)  to  be  chaste, 
sober,  charitable  with  money  ;  to  praise  God,  look 
to  a  future  life,  and  so  on.  Except  that  there 
is  no  Sunday,  and  the  curious  idea  of  "  praise  " 
has  never  entered  a  Chinaman's  mind,  a  "  good 
man  "  in  China- — which  means  in  this  connection 
exactly  the  same  thing  as  a  pious  or  religious 
one- — is  very  much  a  counterpart  of  the  good 
Englishman.  He  visits  the  church  or  temple 
with  quite  as  much  or  as  little  understanding 
as  most  of  ourselves  of  the  reason  why  he  does 
so ;  and  says  prayers — but  only  when  he  has 
anything  to  pray  for  ;    he  pours  out  a  libation 

293 


294  RELIGION  AND   REBELLION     [chap,  xv 

or  scatters  a  thank-offering  for  his  food,  and 
moreover  does  not  forget  an  acknowledgment, 
often  daily,  to  his  ancestors.  In  chastity  per- 
haps inferior,  in  sobriety  decidedly  superior  to 
our  average  selves,  he  is  infinitely,  more  charit- 
able, especially  to  relatives  ;  in  his  private,  but 
not  in  his  public  capacity.  As  to  a  future  life, 
he  is  totally  indifferent  on  that  subject  so  long 
as  his  head  is  kept  on  his  shoulders  in  this  one, 
in  order  that  he  may  make  his  bow  in  decent 
form  when  he  arrives  in  any  other  sphere  there 
may  be.  In  "  natural  religion,"  therefore,  a 
Chinaman  differs  little  from  ourselves. 

In  "faith,"  "doctrine,"  and  "dogma"  it  is 
different ;  and  I  do  not  believe  any  power  will 
succeed  in  drumming  any  one  of  the  three  into 
the  Chinese  mind,  which  is  much  too  clear  to 
take  on  trust  any  mere  insistence  upon  alleged 
facts  which  cannot  be  proved  by  plain  evidence. 
With  us  a  cook  who  wants  a  good  situation  ad- 
vertises that  she  "  holds  Church  views."  Most 
Chinamen  have  also  their  views,  and  if  not  so 
orthodox  to  our  taste  as  those  of  the  cook,  they 
are  usually  at  least  more  intelligible.  There 
would  never  be  any  "  missionary  rows  "  if  things 
were  allowed  to  stand  in  the  "view"  stage; 
but  (sometimes  unhappily)  our  churches  militant 
think  it  their  duty  to  try  and  effect  a  change, 
not  only  of  view,  but  also  of  behaviour  by  active 
means,  instead  of  allowing  the  Chinaman  to 
think  and  act  (as  they  themselves  do)  for  himself. 
The  average  Chinese,  though  behindhand  in 
science,  is,  in  many  matters,  the  intellectual 
superior  of  the  average  European  ;  hence  comes 
the  trouble. 

The  foundation  of  religious  feeling  seems  to 
have  been  much  the  same  in  ancient  China  as 
elsewhere.  The  sun  was  seen  to  rise,  shedding 
warmth  and  light ;    the  moon  did  the  same,  in 


B.C.  3000-500]  THROUGH  A  GLASS,  DARKLY  295 

part.  Hence  the  saluting  or  worshipping  of 
the  sun  ;  and,  by  analogy,  to  a  lesser  extent,  the 
moon.  The  wind  and  rain  were  as  often  agree- 
able as  objectionable.  Hence  the  idea  of  bad 
and  good  forces,  with  an  appeal  to  the  pair  for 
some  show  of  discrimination  in  their  favours. 
When  life  sped,  it  was  difficult  to  imagine  (the 
body  being  still  there)  whither  the  intelligence 
and  activity  had  gone.  Hence  confused  ideas 
of  souls,  ghosts,  gods,  and  so  on.  It  is  easy  to 
extend  this  natural  system.  Desire  for  children, 
gratitude  to  parents,  remorse  for  injury  done  to 
the  dead  ;  mysterious  noises  in  darkness  and 
solitude  ;  droughts,  floods,  eclipses.  In  a  word, 
Chinamen  saw  themselves  surrounded  by  many 
things  they  could  not  understand,  and  their 
imaginations  (like  those  of  our  early  ancestors) 
constructed  strange  "  beliefs "  to  account  for 
them. 

The  next  stage  was  the  Confucian,  and  it  was 
only  in  Confucius'  time  that  written  thought 
became  really  intelligible  and  connected,  and 
that  older  works  of  value  were  made  more  dis- 
tinct. Confucius  had  the  good  sense  to  say  that  he 
understood  nothing  about  souls  and  supernatural 
mysteries  ;  he  therefore  declined  to  discuss  them. 
But  meanwhile  forms  and  ceremonies  had  in- 
sensibly grown  up  with  advancing  wealth  and 
experience ;  besides  which  Taoism  and  other 
philosophical  doctrines  were  beginning  to  make 
men  speculative  and  polemical.  Confucius, 
therefore,  did  his  best  to  reconcile  popular  cus- 
toms or  prejudices  with  the  practical  business 
of  state  ;  he  does  not  seem  to  have  much  sym- 
pathised with  mere  "  thinkers."  He  evidently 
thought  Laocius  a  humbug,  and  he  would  have 
thought  Kant  a  humbug  too.  He  was  a  sort 
of  popular  democratic  Lord  Chesterfield,  and 
tried  to  teach  his  children  of  China  how  to  be 


296         RELIGION  AND   REBELLION      [chap,  xv 

decent,  orderly,  and  gentle  ;  how  to  give  and 
take  without  violence  ;  how  to  observe  distinc- 
tions of  rank  ;  how  to  keep  women  in  check  ; 
and  so  on.  He  did  this  with  such  success 
(despite  a  suspicion  of  priggishness)  that  his 
influence  still  remains ;  for  dynasty  after  dynasty 
has  found  support  therein  for  "  monarchism." 
He  was  no  religious  teacher ;  but  as  a  moral 
instructor  he  must  be  given  rank  after  Jesus 
of  Nazareth,' — possibly  even  after  Shakyamuni  ; 
with,  but  before  Mahomet.  Even  the  Republic, 
after  abolishing  him,  has  plumped  for  him  once 
more.  It  must  be  stated,  however,  what  is  not  gen- 
erally known,  that  a  couple  of  centuries  earlier  the 
practical  statesman  Kwan-tsz  ^  anticipated  a  good 
portion  of  both  Laocius'  and  Confucius'  teaching. 
A  further  great  revolution  in  thought  took  place 
about  two  centuries  before  our  era;  the  time 
coincides  with  the  conquests  of  the  Parthians, 
and  it  is  possible  that  Graeco-Roman  civilisation 
was  affected  by  the  same  wave  that  influenced 
China — whatever  it  was.  At  all  events  there 
was  a  general  movement  and  a  simultaneous 
expansion  in  the  world,  all  the  way  from  Rome 
to  Corea.  The  result  was  that  China  now  first 
heard  of  India,  Buddhism,  and  the  Parthians  ; 
and  before  long  Buddhist  philosophy  took  a 
firm  hold  on  the  Chinese  mind,  just  as  Chris- 
tianity at  the  same  time  gradually  got  a  grip  of 
the  Roman  or  Greek  mind.  The  history  of  the 
spread  of  Buddhism  over  the  Far  East  is  a  long 
one.  Like  Christianity,  later  on  it  soon  became 
surcharged  with  useless  "  doctrine  "  and  priestly 
corruption ;  in  other  words,  the  men  who  handled 
it  were  but  poor  representatives  of  the  founders. 
Hence  it  lost  caste,  and  had  its  ups  and  downs 
from  dynasty  to  dynasty,  just  as  our  European 
religions  had  during  Tudor  times.     But  it  left 

1  See  pp.  43,  238. 


A.D.  100-1900]  CHRISTIANITY  AND  BUDDHISM  297 

behind  a  lasting  effect  in  this  way.  Buddhism 
was  democratic ;  it  was  the  enemy  of  class 
feeling,  luxury,  cruelty,  and  greed.  It  was 
merciful,  favoured  simplicity  and  economy,  and 
gave  women  an  equal  status  with  men.  Hence 
it  has  had  a  decidedly  good  influence  upon 
men's  minds,  and  especially  upon  women's;  in 
fact,  Chinese  women,  having  nearly  always 
been  uneducated,  and  therefore  unable  to  read 
or  understand  contentious  philosophy ;  being 
assigned  moreover  by  Confucius  a  back  seat  in 
life,  could  have  no  religion  or  moral  teaching 
except  Buddhism  and  "  nature."  All  Buddhist 
"  doctrine  "  is  discredited  in  China  by  men  of 
intellect  now,  and  so  are  priests  as  professors  of 
it ;  but  the  true  and  simple  teaching  of  Shakya- 
muni  survives  ;  and,  as  priests  possess  glebes  ; 
are  independent ;  and  are  usually  travelled  and 
sometimes  even  well-read  men,  with  a  leisured 
taste  for  calligraphy  and  antiquity;  they  often 
enjoy  the  respect  and  companionship  of  the 
learned.  The  Republic,  having  begun  rather 
summarily  with  priests,  gradually  reconsidered 
their  vested  rights,  and  things  do  not  seem  to  be 
quite  settled  yet.  Both  they  and  their  temples 
are  more  popular  with  women  than  men  like 
to  see,  and  in  some  provinces  there  is  moral 
laxity  ;  just  as  in  Brazil,  Manila,  or  Hungary 
the  Catholic  priests  are  less  strict  than  they  are 
in  England,  Germany,  or  France.  When  men 
die,  the  families,  and  especially  the  women, 
like  to  have  a  few  priests  in,  and  they  are  not 
particular  as  to  doctrine,  or  even  as  to  religion, 
so  long  as  chaunting  and  processions  of  some 
sort  go  on.  Just  as  distinguished  French  scoffers 
are  reported  to  send  for  a  priest  at  the  last 
moment,  so  even  a  Chinese  mandarin  thinks 
it  good  form  to  summon  a  Taoist  or  a  bonze 
when  a  calamity  takes  place.     It  is  only  another 


298  RELIGION  AND   REBELLION      [chap,  xv 

form  of  "  church  parade."  In  Singapore  there 
is  a  Roman  Cathohc  church  in  which  a  figure  of 
the  Blessed  Virgin  has  somehow  acquired  a 
repute  amongst  the  pagans  ;  and,  as  the  Portu- 
guese priest  in  charge  himself  told  me,  there  is 
a  sort  of  annual  pagan  "  wake  "  held  every  year 
there.  The  fact  is  that,  politics  apart,  the 
Chinese  take  an  easy  and  broad-minded  view 
of  all  religions,  and  would  never  persecute  any- 
one so  long  as  no  gross  immorality  or  inter- 
ference with  administration,  custom,  and  liberty 
took  place.  The  Mussulmans  in  North  China 
are  never  in  the  least  interfered  vv^ith,  because 
they  have  the  good  sense  (like  the  early  Jesuits 
had)  to  fall  in  with  popidar  feeling,  and  "  let 
things  be,"  The  Chinese,  in  turn,  give  them  a 
free  hand  in  circumcision,  pork,  wine,  and 
other  specialities.  It  is  only  in.  Yiin  Nan  and 
Kan  Suh,  where  Mahometans  have  at  times 
become  rather  aggressive,  that  wars  and  perse- 
cutions have  taken  place,  the  faults,  as  usual, 
being  on  both  sides. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  when  Christianity 
first  appeared.  I  say  *'  first "  advisedly,  for 
though  Nestorians,  Mazdeans,  Manichaeans,  Jews, 
and  other  Western  sectarians  had  been  alter- 
nately tolerated  and  suppressed  at  various  times 
between  the  seventh  and  the  thirteenth  century, 
they  had  never  been  clearly  separated,  in  the 
popular  mind  at  least,  from  Buddhists  and 
Mussulmans,  of  which  they  were  considered 
perverted  forms.  At  first  there  was  no  hostility 
to  speak  of ;  but  the  attitude  of  the  less  prudent 
Roman  Catholics  in  the  seventeenth  century 
towards  the  time-honoured  custom  of  "  ancestor- 
worship  "  (which  is  really  much  the  same  as  the 
annual  visits  to  cemeteries  in  vogue  in  France 
and  Italy)  sowed  the  germs  of  future  trouble. 
The  disputes   of  the  Jesuits,   Dominicans,   the 


A.D.  1840-1910]  CHARITY  NEVER  FAILETH     299 

Franciscans  involved  the  Pope  and  the  Manchu 
Emperor  in  antagonistic  polemics  ;  persecution 
was  the  result ;  and  for  two  centuries  Chris- 
tianity only  existed  in  the  provinces  by  stealth. 
The  treaty  of  Nanking  (in  1842),  and  still  more 
that  of  Tientsin  (in  1858),  gave  a  fillip  to  propa- 
gandism  ;  and  now  perhaps  there  are  a  million 
or  more  of  nominal  Christians  in  the  empire, 
i.e.  about  two  or  three  for  every  thousand  souls, 
and  it  must  cost  quite  a  million  pounds  a  year 
to  give  them  spiritual  comfort.  It  is  quite  a 
mistake  to  suppose  that  the  Chinese  masses 
entertain  any  hostile  sentiments  towards  re- 
ligious feeling  as  such  :  they  respect  it,  in 
whatever  form ;  and  the  gentle  doctrines  of 
true,  simple  Buddhism,  which  possess  so  much 
that  is  (externally  at  least)  similar  to  those  of 
true,  simple  Christianity,  have,  as  already 
stated,  on  the  whole,  exercised  a  lasting  effect 
for  good  on  the  Chinese  mind  :  so  do  medical 
missionaries  and  really  charitable  school  teachers 
exercise  a  decidedly  good  effect  upon  the  Celestial 
mind  of  to-day  :  but  by  reasoning  kindness,  not 
by  dogma.  What  causes  trouble  is  the  clashing 
of  militant  doctrine  with  the  village  customs 
and  social  habits  naturally  dear  to  the  rustic 
mind.  I  will  just  enumerate  a  few  instances  to 
illustrate  my  meaning.  Roman  Catholic  and 
Protestant  missionaries  alike  inveigh  against 
foot-binding.  This  is  not  unreasonable,  and 
even  the  Chinese  themselves  are  beginning  to  see 
that  it  is  an  evil  custom.  The  old  Dowager 
explicitly  condemned  it  some  years  ago,  and 
now  it  is  distinctly  on  the  decline,  besides  being 
presidentially  denounced ;  but  prudence  is  still  re- 
quired, otherwise  it  is  manifest  that  hostility  and 
jealousy  must  arise  between  conservative  and  pro- 
gressive females,  just  as  with  us  a  too  energetic 
display  of  the  Bloomer  costume  or  a  divided  skirt 


300  RELIGION  AND   REBELLION      [chap,  xv 

is  apt,  as  a  mere  novelty,  to  cause  a  "  row."  Both 
Roman  Catholics  and  Protestants  rightly  inveigh 
against  the  use  of  opium  ;  and  happily  there  is 
no  longer  any  risk  of  hostility  on  this  ground, 
as  both  the  Republican  and  the  British  govern- 
ments are  whole-heartedly  doing  their  best. 
The  Protestants,  but  not  tlie  Roman  Catholics, 
usually  make  an  unnecessary  fuss  about  the  use 
of  spirituous  liquors.  Coming  as  they  do  from 
drunken  countries  where  liquor  too  often  means 
vice,  they  have  not  the  discrimination  to  see  that 
their  exhortations  are  quite  unnecessary  in  a  land 
where  intemperance  is  practically  unknovv  n.  It  is 
to  be  hoped  that  the  suppression  of  opium  smok- 
ing will  not  bring  dram-drinking  into  vogue  ; 
and  it  is  also  to  be  hoped  that  the  Japanese 
will  be  generous  enough  to  discourage  the  profit- 
able trade  in  morphia  and  its  apparatus.  The 
questions  of  slavery  and  concubinage  are  more 
serious  ;  but  here  again  Europeans  are  misled 
by  their  own  words.  Slavery  in  China  has  never 
at  any  time  savoured  of  the  brutality  the  black 
variety  assumed  in  European  or  Arab  hands  : 
in  denouncing  Chinese  slavery— which,  though 
admitted  by  the  Chinese  themselves  to  be  ob- 
jectionable, is  really  more  a  social  caste  distinc- 
tion, or  diminutio  capitis,  than  a  heartless  traffic 
in  human  flesh- — the  missionaries  are  unjustly 
censuring  the  Chinese  in  principle  for  the  past 
abominable  crimes  of  their  ovvm  ancestors.  Since 
the  recent  legal  reforms,  slavery  has  been  nomin- 
ally abolished  throughout  the  Empire,  but  no 
doubt  old  customs  still  persist  in  parts  inacces- 
sible to  new  influences  ;  as,  for  instance,  in  remote 
Kwei  Chou  province,  where  "  official  sales"  of 
poor  children  were  disclosed  in  1908.  So,  again, 
the  word  "concubinage"  connotes  with  us  de- 
grading ideas  which  the  corresponding  Chinese 
word  in  no  way  expresses.     Apart  from  the  fact 


A.D.  1917]     CUSTOMS  AND  SUPERSTITIONS     301 

that  polygamy  was  universal  at  one  time  both 
with  our  own  religious  ancestors  the  JeAvs  and 
with  our  own  political  ancestors  the  Romans,  it 
is  still  the  rule  rather  than  the  exception  all  over 
Asia,  and  there  seems  to  be  nothing  inherently  or 
naturally  evil  in  it;  in  fact,  the  devastating  results 
of  the  great  war  are  now  suggesting  a  Kultunxl 
revival  of  it  in  order  to  restore  the  already  un- 
favourable balance  of  sexes.  We  have  no  right 
to  force  on  other  peoples  rites  and  ceremonies 
when  the  sanctions  and  grounds  do  not  exist 
which  render  those  forms  incumbent  on  us. 
Then  there  are  the  village  temple  feasts,  the 
prayers  for  rain,  the  exorcising  of  demons,  in 
Manchu  times  the  obeisance  to  Imperial  tablets, 
even  under  the  Republic  to  Confucius'  shrine, 
and  so  on.  These  last  are  the  points  where  the 
narrow-minded  views  and  actions  of  some  mis- 
sionaries have  been  apt  to  give  most  trouble. 
If  it  is  the  custom  for  all  to  subscribe  to  a  temple 
or  other  "  superstitious  "  feast,  it  is  monstrous 
for  a  too  strait-laced  missionary  to  back  up  the 
protest  of  a  more  or  less  genuine  convert  who 
may  simply  want  to  escape  paying  his  scot  : 
in  fact,  the  missionary  himself  ought  to  subscribe 
to  anything  in  the  shape  of  local  rates  which 
has  the  approval  of  authority.  Anyway,  he  has 
no  business  whatever  to  question  an  official 
decision  touching  the  incidence  of  rates  or 
popular  levies  upon  a  Chinese.  Our  own  church 
rates,  though  not  now  compulsory,  have  been 
so  at  times.  Even  admitting  that  the  Chinese 
customary  levies  are  absurd  and  unjust,  we 
must  allow  they  are  not  so  much  so  that  we  are 
entitled  to  condemn  them  more  severely  than 
many  of  our  own  follies  committed  in  the  name 
of  religion,  ancient  custom,  or  local  tradition. 

So    far    from    being    irreligious,    the   Chinese 
are  decidedly  religiously  inclined,  though  their 


302  RELIGION  AND   REBELLION      [chap,  xv 

religious  feelings  may  not  take  that  gloomy, 
Anglo-Dutch  form  which  is  the  peculiarity  of 
"  dissenting  "  coimtries.  In  the  first  place,  all 
Chinese  have  a  deep  veneration  for  the  idea  of 
a  soul,  or  the  continuity  of  life  ;  this  idea  is 
derived  partly  from  the  old  Shamanistic  or 
natural  religion,  and  partly  from  the  Buddhist 
notion  of  transmigration.  Hence  the  great 
care  of  the  dead,  the  love  of  funeral  ceremonies, 
the  readiness  to  spend  money  upon  graves,  the 
desire  to  propitiate  the  ghosts  of  ancestors,  the 
yearning  for  a  son,  the  strong  family  sentiment 
of  unity,  and  the  strict  subordination  of  younger 
to  elder,  the  chief  rock  upon  which  law  reforms 
partly  came  to  grief.  Hair-splitting  doctrine  has 
no  charms  for  the  Chinese  mind,  which,  however 
ill-trained,  is  essentially  intellectual  and  liberal. 
The  most  militant  and  aggressive  religion  on 
earth,  that  of  Mahomet,  has  learnt  to  live  in 
peace  everywhere  in  China  except  on  the  borders 
where  foreign  races  complicate  the  situation ; 
and  a  Mussulman  might  be  and  occasionally  was 
a  Chinese  (i.e.  Manchu  time)  Viceroy ;  as,  indeed, 
even  a  Christian  might  be  if  he  would  only  make 
reasonable  concessions,  and  give  us  a  little  more 
bright,  cheery,  tolerant  human  nature,  instead 
of  seeking  to  condemn  those  whose  consciences 
do  not  permit  them  to  accept  his  views  of  what 
is  right  and  true.  Under  the  Republic  all 
religions  have  been  declared  free,  and,  as  the 
American  traveller  Rodney  Gilbert  has  this 
year  shown  us,  a  powerful  Mussulman  general 
has  accepted  Chinese  rank  and  is  virtually  ruling 
Islam  on  the  Tibetan  frontiers  as  an  independent 
satrap. 

The  above  being  the  general  feeling  of  the 
Chinese,  we  may  now  go  on  to  describe  them  as 
exactly  the  contrary  of  what  they  are  usually 
supposed   to   be ;     that   is,   they   are   religious- 


A.D.  1300-1600]      RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION      S03 

minded,  tolerant,  and  non-militant ;  but  neither 
the  educated  nor  the  ignorant  classes  will  have 
what  they  honestly  believe  to  be  humbug  thrust 
down  their  throats,  and  such  religious  animosity 
as  exists^ — which  has  never  been  exercised  in 
one  single  instance  against  the  Russian  Orthodox 
Church — has  often  had  to  thank  the  mistaken 
zeal  of  Roman  Catholic  and  Protestant  mission- 
aries for  its  own  birth  and  growth ;  or,  as  in  the 
"  Boxer "  case,  is  indirectly  owing  to  the 
"  blood  of  the  martyrs  "  having  been  used  (as 
was  done  by  Prussia)  for  political  gain.  This 
brings  us  to  the  germane  subject  of  Chinese 
rebellions  and  secret  societies,  which  have  in- 
variably been  provoked  by  religious  sectaries. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  year  1308,  immediately 
after  John  of  Monte-Corvino  had  been  conse- 
crated Archbishop  of  Cambalu  (Peking),  Chris- 
tian priests,  Buddhist  bonzes,  and  Taoist  monks 
were  ordered  to  "  pay  taxes  in  future  like  any 
one  else,"  and  steps  were  taken  to  put  a  stop  to 
the  "  exacting  claims  of  Buddhist  priests." 
The  evident  connection  of  religion  with  rebel- 
lion is  apparent  from  the  following  :  "  Princes 
and  Tibetan  priests  in  the  imperial  cortege 
having  oppressed  the  people  on  the  roads,  such 
things  are  now  prohibited.  Prohibited  is  also 
the  White  Lily  Sect ;  and  their  buildings  will 
be  destroyed  :  their  sectaries  will  once  more  be 
made  common  people."  Again,  in  1322  :  "  Pro- 
hibition of  White  Lily  Buddhist  business."  And 
in  1349  there  was  a  red-turban  revolt  in  the 
north  of  modern  An  Hwei,  once  more  under  the 
segis  of  the  White  Lily  Society.  It  was  given 
out  in  this  connection  that  Maitraya  (the  Bud- 
dhist Messiah)  was  coming  to  earth.  Shortly 
after  this  a  Buddhist  priest  turned  the  Mongols 
out,  and  founded  the  Ming  dynasty.  In  1622 
a  White  Lily  revolt  broke  out  in  the  exact  spot 


304  RELIGION  AND   REBELLION      [chap.  XV 

where  the  madcap  "Boxer"  rebelhon  of  1900 
had  its  birth.  The  Jesuits,  then  estabhshing 
themselves  in  China,  were  not  unnaturally  con- 
nected with  this  rebellion  in  the  Chinese  mind, 
and  for  some  years  the  Prime  Minister  severely 
persecuted  them.  Meanwhile  the  White  Lily 
leader  gained  headway,  sacked  Peking,  and  put 
an  end  to  the  Ming  dynasty,  which  was  replaced 
by  the  very  Manchus  whose  assistance  the  Ming 
statesmen  had  sought.  During  the  greater 
part  of  the  two  first  centuries  of  Manchu  rule 
there  were  not  many  serious  popular  rebellions ; 
but,  such  as  they  were,  religion  was  always  at 
the  bottom  of  the  trouble.  In  1778  a  revolt  in 
South  Shan  Si  brought  the  White  Lily  Society 
once  more  under  review.  In  speaking  of  a 
Mussulman  schism  of  the  same  date,  the  Emperor 
says  :  "  It  is  similar  in  principle  to  the  White 
Lily  faith  amongst  bonzes."  Rebellions  were 
then  spreading  rapidly  all  over  the  Empire, 
which  was  really  in  a  very  parlous  state  when 
the  aged  K'ien-lung  abdicated  in  1795  to  his  son, 
after  a  splendid  reign  of  sixty  years.  In  that 
year  the  leading  White  Lily  chief  was  taken  and 
executed  ;  the  services  of  General  Nayench'eng 
(grandson  of  Akwei,  the  Manchu  sent  to  conquer 
Burma)  are  now  first  mentioned.  In  1813  a 
"  Boxer  "  revolt  broke  out  once  more  in  the  old 
spot  (South  Shan  Tung),  and  some  of  its  sec- 
taries even  gained  admission  to  the  Peking 
Palace.  The  Emperor  Kia-k'ing's  life  was  only 
saved  by  the  bravery  of  his  second  son,  after- 
wards the  Emperor  Tao-kwang.  Though  the 
term  "  Boxer  "  is  used  by  General  Nayench'eng 
in  connection  with  this  rising,  its  lineal  descent 
from  the  White  Lily  sect  is  amply  attested  by 
him,  though  the  official  name  at  the  time  was 
T'ien-li,  or  "  Heavenly  Order "  Faith.  Its 
indirect    connection    with    Christianity,    or    at 


A.D.  1850-1900]  HOW  THE  HEATHEN  RAGE    305 

least  with  Christian  ideas,  is  possible  from  the 
fact  that  the  term  "  White  Ocean  Faith  "  is 
also  vaguely  used  by  some  of  the  conspirators. 

At  last,  in  1850,  the  direct  connection  of  Chris- 
tianity with  rebellion  was  made  perfectly  clear 
when  the  standard  of  revolt  was  raised  in  Kwang 
Si  by  a  student  of  the  Christian  doctrine  named 
Hung  Siu-ts'iian  :  he  styled  his  sect  the  Shang-ti 
Hwei,  or  "  Society  of  God,"  and  reigned  for  ten 
years  as  "  King  of  Heaven  "  at  Nanking,  claim- 
ing blood  relationship  with  Jesus  Christ.  It  was 
not  until  1864  that  the  late  Marquess  Tseng's  ^ 
father  succeeded  in  retaking  the  city  ;  and  mean- 
while half  China  had  been  ravaged.  I  have 
already  referred  to  the  Great  Rebellion  in  the 
chapter  on  "  Population." 

It  is  unnecessary  to  inquire  into  the  exact 
religious  or  anti-religious  motives  which  inspired 
the  present  "  Boxer  "  revolt  :  matters  of  opinion 
in  religion  and  superstition  alike  are  of  no 
scientific  importance  to  anyone  but  the  holder, 
so  far  at  least  as  they  are  unsupported  by  evi- 
dence of  truth  :  but,  so  far  as  those  opinions 
bear  upon  practical  human  affairs,  it  is  interest- 
ing to  note  several  indisputable  facts  :  (1)  the 
"  Boxers  "  were  inspired  by  the  tenets  of  the  old 
White  Lily  Society — i.e.  they  were  a  protest 
made  by  the  spirit  of  Buddhism  against  the 
spirit  of  militant  Christianity ;  (2)  the  mili- 
tancy against  which  the  "  Boxers  "  protest  is 
the  evident  connection  in  their  minds  between 
the  land-acquisitiveness  of  Europeans  and  the 
supposed  alliance  between  European  militant 
missionaries  and  European  political  aims.  As 
usual  in  human  affairs,  the  pretests  of  ignorant 
men  assume  a  violent  form,  and  passion  feeds 
upon  itself  as  it  rages. 

The  "  Boxer  "  rebellion  had  two  most  impor- 

^  Minister  to  Great  Britain  a  generation  ago. 


306  HELIGION  AND   REBELLION    [chap.  xV 

tant  literary  consequences.  The  great  library 
of  the  Han-lin  Academy,  and  that  of  the 
Russian  College  at  Pei  Kwan,  were  both  utterly 
destroyed  :  most  of  the  "  Albazins,"  or  Russi- 
fied Chinese,  also  perished.  In  retaliation,  the 
Russians  carted  o^  to  Europe  the  whole  of  the 
vast  manuscript  collection  from  the  Mukden 
Palace  :  this  included  manuscript  copies  of  the 
Greek  and  Roman  classics,  which  must  have 
been  brought  from  Europe  either  by  the  early 
missionaries,  or  by  the  Mongols  after  their  con- 
quests in  Hungary. 


CHAPTER    XVI 

LAW 

After  the  excitement  caused  by  the  Russo- 
Japanese  war,  a  Chinese  imperial  decree  dated 
April  24,  1905,  recited  hov>^  the  Throne  had  been 
advised  to  recast  some  of  the  laws  in  accordance 
with  the  spirit  of  the  age,  and  how  it  had  been 
resolved  to  abolish  at  once  the  cruel  lingering 
punishment  of  hacking  the  body.  It  is  apolo- 
getically explained  that  the  Manchus,  previously 
to  their  assuming  control  of  the  Chinese  Empire 
260  years  previously,  knew  no  punishment  severer 
than  simple  death ;  but  that,  "  contrary  to 
their  own  merciful  inclinations,"  they  had  been 
induced  to  take  over  this  and  other  exaggerated 
forms  from  the  laws  of  the  preceding  dynasty. 
In  future,  therefore,  decapitation  and  strangu- 
lation, either  immediate  or  after  a  period  of 
revision  and  delay,  were  to  be  the  only  death 
punishments  ;  the  branding  of  criminals  on  the 
face,  the  exposure  of  decapitated  heads,  and  the 
decapitating  of  dead  bodies  in  the  case  of 
criminals  not  taken  alive,  were  also  abolished. 
A  later  decree  foreshadowed  the  abolition  of 
torture  during  trial ;  and  shortly  afterwards 
one  of  the  stipendiary  magistrates  at  Peking 
was  dismissed  from  his  post  by  the  Emperor  for 
disobeying  the  new  law  in  a  civil  case  brought 
before  him.  However,  even  under  the  Republic, 
22  307 


308  LAW  [chap.  XVI 

it  is  unquestionable  that,  although  nominally 
abolished,  the  practice  occasionally  survives. 
In  pursuance  of  the  1905  decree,  the  Board  of 
Punishments  Throne  at  once  set  to  work,  and 
the  laws  of  England,  France,  Germany,  and 
Belgium  were  compared  with  the  Chinese  code 
laws  which  prevailed  500  and  1,000  years  ago. 
The  matter  was  still  in  a  transition  state  Vv^hen 
the  Dowager  and  the  Emperor  died  in  1908. 

The  fact  that  Chinese  law  is  in  need  of  prac- 
tical reform  in  no  way  involves  the  admission 
that  China  is  devoid  of  a  legal  history  and 
equitable  principles  ;  nor  must  it  be  forgotten, 
Avhen  v\^e  criticise  Cliinese  severity,  that  until  a 
hundred  years  ago  Englishmen  guilty  of  treason 
were  cut  down  from  the  gallows  whilst  alive, 
and  had  their  entrails  taken  out  and  burnt 
before  their  eyes  :  women  were  burnt  alive  for 
tr'eason  until  1790  ;  and  even  until  1870  men 
convicted  of  treason  were  supposed  to  be 
quartered  after  execution.  Until  William  the 
Fourth's  reign,  highwaymen  and  other  notorious 
criminals  were  gibbeted  in  chains  and  handed 
over  to  surgeons  for  dissection  ;  and  the  late 
Sir  James  Fitzjames  Stephen,  in  his  Digest  of 
our  Criminal  Law,  himself  alludes  to  the  atrocious 
severity  of  our  former  larceny  laws  :  hanging 
for  sheep-stealing,  for  instance,  was  common 
enough  in  Dr.  Johnson's  time.  I  believe  I  am 
correct  in  saying  that  up  to  the  beginning  of  the 
late  Queen  Victoria's  reign  there  were  200 
offences  for  which  a  man  might  be  hanged.  We 
must  therefore  make  reasonable  allowances  for 
other  nations  ;  and  in  any  case  it  must  be  con- 
ceded that  a  peaceful  industrious  civilisation, 
containing  within  it  such  enormous  powers  of 
passive  resistance  to  foreign  aggression  as  China 
does,  necessarily  possesses  many  an  occult  virtue. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  China  possesses  a  very 


B.C.  2000-A.D.  1900]  CHINESE  THEORY  OF  LAW  309 

extensive  and  perfectly  consecutive  legal  his- 
tory :  throughout  all  the  changes  of  dynasty 
appeal  has  been  made  unswervingly  to  the  same 
ancient  principles,  and  there  has  been  almost  no 
borrowing  at  all  from  foreign  sources.  Tlie 
foundations  of  existing  legal  principle  are  nearly 
all  to  be  found  in  the  old  classical  literature, — 
the  same  literature  which  suggested  to  Con- 
fucius, and  to  the  other  Chinese  philosophers 
and  legists,  both  before  and  after  him,  the  various 
types  of  political  religion  :  in  fact,  ritual,  law, 
and  religion  are  simply  different  expressions  of 
the  single  all-pervading  principle  of  imtria 
potestas  or  filial  piety,  which  is  the  kernel  or 
root-motive  of  all  Chinese  ethics. 

Even  in  our  own  time,  the  conception  of  the 
word  Law  as  meaning  nothing  more  than  a  series 
of  sovereign  commands  is  only  gaining  ground 
very  slowly,  after  having  been  laboriously  worked 
out  by  the  great  jurist  Austin.  This  idea  is 
clearly  brought  out  from  the  very  beginning  of 
Chinese  legal  history,  except  that  the  automatic 
sanction  and  the  command  of  nature  seem  to 
form  at  first  one  indivisible  unit.  Sir  Henry 
Maine,  in  his  Ancient  Law,  has  pointed  out 
that  Austin  fails  to  provide  us  with  a  motive 
for  command  ;  but  the  Chinese  view  that  all 
government  must  accord  with  the  smooth  work- 
ings of  nature  supplies  the  missing  motive. 
"  Punishment  laws  "  rather  than  "  laws  and 
their  punishments  "  is  the  idea  as  conceived  by 
the  Chinese  mind,  including  the  inseparable  con- 
nection between  making  war  and  enforcing  the 
law  :  under  the  head  of  the  "  greatest  punish- 
ments "  com.e  making  war  and  putting  to  death  ; 
the  "  secondary  punishments "  included  cas- 
tration, cutting  off  the  feet,  slicing  off  the  knee- 
cap, and  branding  ;  the  "  minor  punishments  " 
flogging  and  the  bastinado.     The  object  of  law 


310  LAW  [chap.  XVI 

was  to  keep  the  feudal  states  in  order,  to  make 
officials  do  their  duty,  and  to  restrain  the  people 
from  excess.  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  tlie 
Chinese  conception  of  law  is  pre-eminently 
criminal  law.  The  Emperor  as  sole  lawgiver 
was  the  Vicegerent  of  Heaven,  and  it  is  his 
duty  to  govern  directly  and  tlu'ough  his  agents 
in  accordance  with  the  harmonious  order  of 
nature  :  if  he  fails  to  do  so,  and  persists,  he  is 
liable  to  be  overthrown. 

Unjust  judgments  shock  the  smooth  workings 
of  nature,  and  call  down  various  disasters.  So 
far  as  man  is  concerned,  his  five  natural  rela- 
tions are  those  of  subject,  father,  husband, 
brother  and  friend.  But,  so  long  as  the  Emperor 
governed  with  reasonable  integrity,  he  was 
entitled  to  the  absolute  obedience  of  all  his 
lieges.  The  Emperor  was  to  •  the  State  on  a 
large  Scale  exactly  what  the  paterfamilias  is  to 
the  family  on  a  small  scale,  the  function  in  either 
case  being  that  of  maintaining  order;  as  the 
ancient  Chinese  said  : — "  The  lash  may  not  be 
relaxed  in  the  family,  nor  punishments  in  the 
State,  nor  arms  in  the  Empire."  The  laws  are 
like  the  stings  used  by  insects  for  self-protec- 
tion ;  beginning  with  war  and  ending  with  rules 
of  propriety  ;  instruments  for  maintaining  an 
even  level ;  and  so  on.  The  government  in  no 
way  interferes  with  the  management  of  the 
family  ;  on  the  contrary,  the  Avhole  resources 
of  the  State  are  placed  at  tiie  service  of  each 
family-head,  on  condition  of  his  being  politically 
responsible  in  return  for  the  loyalty  and  order 
of  his  family.  The  whole  Chinese  administrative 
system  is  based  on  the  doctrine  of  filial  piety, 
in  its  most  extended  signification  of  duty  to 
natural  parents  and  also  to  political  parents. 
China  has  thus  always  been  one  vast  republic 
of  innumerable  private  families,  or  petty  imperiaf 


A.D.  1905]  CUSTOMARY    LAW  311 

within  one  public  family,  or  general  imperium  ; 
the  organisation  consists  of  a  number  of  self- 
producing  and  ever-multiplying  independent 
cells,  each  maintaining  a  complete  administra- 
tive existence  apart  from  the  central  power. 
Doubtless  it  is  this  fact  that  in  a  large  mea- 
sure accounts  for  China's  elastic  indestructi- 
bility in  the  face  of  so  many  conquests  and 
revolutions. 

The  Chinese  idea  of  law  thus  being  castiga- 
tory,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that,  apart 
from  recent  discussions  and  reforms,  there  is  no 
science  of  civil  jurisprudence  in  the  European 
sense.  Moreover  the  executive  and  the  judicial 
powers  have  always  been  wielded  by  the  sam.e 
hand,  and  the  distinction  between  the  two 
was  not  even  clearly  perceived  or  provided  v/ith 
distinctive  names  until  1905.  All  matters  of 
what  we  should  call  Family  Law  were  left  entirely 
to  the  family  or  clan  ;  the  governm.ent  in  no  way 
concerned  itself — at  least  so  far  as  taking  the 
initiative  goes — with  births,  marriages,  deaths, 
burials,  adoption,  legitimacy,  divorce,  mourn- 
ing, testamentary  dispositions,  division  and 
transfer  of  property,  joint  ownership,  mortgages, 
sanitation,  medicine,  midwifery,  sobriety,  or 
morals.  These  were,  and  to  a  large  extent  still 
are,  all  questions  for  the  family  council,  and  it 
is  only  on  the  comparatively  rare  occasions  when 
the  council  actively  and  spontaneously  seeks 
the  assistance  of  a  court  that  the  officials  take 
cognisance  :  even  a  murder  might  be  quietly 
ignored  if  the  clan  concerned  decides  not  to 
complain.  In  the  same  way,  commercial  juris- 
prudence lay  within  the  private  ken  of  the 
different  trading  guilds  ;  banking  questions  were 
decided  by  the  marvellously  close  and  effective 
organisation  of  private  bankers ;  junkmen, 
fishermen,  paAvnbrokers,  post-offices,  squatters, 


812  LAW  [chap.  XVI 

money-lenders,  doctors — in  short,  all  industries 
— managed  their  own  affairs  and  paid  the  fees 
with  the  minimum  of  government  interference, 
if  any ;  and  even  then  the  official  action  was 
taken  in  the  interests  of  public  order  rather 
than  to  assert  a  legal  principle  :  and  although 
a  few  laws  concerning  marriages,  inheritance, 
land  transfer,  usury,  brokerage,  etc.,  were  laid 
down  in  the  codes,  these  rather  expressed  what 
was  the  universal  custom  than  imposed  any 
fresh  "  command."  Many  of  these  matters,  how- 
ever, were  already  in  the  latest  Manchu  times 
being  gradually  brought  under  the  cognisance  of 
newly  constituted  Boards — Agriculture,  Trade, 
Communications,  etc.,  or  Bureaus' — Customs, 
Fisheries,  Post  Office,  and  so  on ;  meanwhile  the 
Republic  has  not  yet  found  its  feet  sufficiently 
to  enable  us  to  declare  finality  on  any  given 
point.  There  is,  strictly  speaking,  under  the 
unreformed  regime,  no  contract  law  at  all  except 
as  touches  the  supreme  contract  of  marriage. 
Thus,  take  the  rate  of  interest  that  pawnbrokers 
might  charge,  and  their  licences  ;  or  the  permits 
to  sail  in  and  out  of  port  :  in  the  one  case  the 
needy  classes  are  protected  from  extortion ;  in 
the  other  travellers  are  protected  from  pirates. 
Should  it  happen  that  any  family  or  any  industry 
saw  fit  to  claim  the  sanction  of  a  court  of  justice, 
it  did  not  at  all  follow  that  such  court  would 
announce,  still  less  create,  a  law  for  itself :  on 
the  contrary,  it  would  do  exactly  what  our 
courts  do,  and  what  they  did  to  a  greater  extent 
before  statute  law  largely  replaced  common 
law^ — it  would  declare  the  law,  or  adopt  the  cus- 
tomary law,  local  or  general,  as  ascertained  on 
evidence.  This  is  only  another  way  of  saying 
that  in  most  matters  China  was  and  still  largely 
is  governed  by  the  customs  of  ancestors,  or 
common  law  ;  that  the  common  law  was  adminis- 


B.C.  2000-200]  THE   PHILOSOPHY  OF  LAW       313 

tered  by  the  people  themselves  ;  and  that  the 
State  (unless  when  specially  invited)  only  stepped 
in  to  prevent  a  breach  of  the  peace. 

According  to  cherished  tradition — which, 
however,  the  best-informed  Chinese  do  not 
take  too  seriously — the  most  ancient  monarchs 
maintained  order  by  inculcating  the  principles 
of  propriety,  only  introducing  punishments 
occasionally ;  even  then  it  was  usually  found 
sufficient  to  "  imagine "  the  punishment,  and 
to  attire  prisoners  in  a  singular  garb  supposed 
to  correspond  with  this  or  that  penalty  :  thus 
those  by  way  of  being  branded  wore  black 
hats ;  those  to  be  deprived  of  their  noses,  red 
trousers;  those  condemned  to  sliced  knee-caps, 
black  coats;  those  to  be  castrated,  coloured  shoes ; 
those  to  be  decapitated,  petticoats  and  no  collar ; 
and  so  on.  From  the  very  earliest  times  banish- 
ment was  resorted  to.  Under  extenuating  cir- 
cumstances the  principle  of  ransomiing  punish- 
ment for  a  money  payment  was  admitted  ;  and 
up  to  our  own  day  the  same  thing  was  allowed, 
at  least  in  theory,  though  in  practice  it  had  a 
good  deal  fallen  off.  But  even  so  far  back  as 
230  B.C.  the  Chinese  philosopher  Siin-tsz,  who 
took  a  pessimistic  view  of  human  nature,  ex- 
posed in  his  chapter  on  Law  the  fallacy  of  this 
view  of  ancient  leniency  :   he  said  :■ — 

"  It  is  evident  crime  went  on  then  as  now,  else 
there  would  have  been  no  prisoners  liable  to  these 
severe  nominal  punishments.  The  principle  is 
a  false  one,  moreover.  If  you  are  going  to 
abolish  death  for  murder,  and  mutilation  for 
injuries  done,  how  are  you  going  to  make  the 
people  dread  ?  The  great  thing  is  to  prevent 
crime  ;  to  condone  it  is  to  nourish  wrong-doing. 
All  this  nonsense  about  pictorial  or  imaginary 
punishments  is  but  a  latter-day  protest  against 


314  LAW  [chap.  XVI 

the  cruel  and  capricious  excesses  of  modern 
times.  Rewards  for  good,  punishments  for  evil 
— the  principle  is  the  same ;  uncertainty  and 
inconsistency  are  the  only  bane.  Consequently 
a  good  government  is  always  a  strict  one,  and  a 
bad  government  is  always  a  lax  one.  The  real 
meaning  of  the  much-quoted  ancient  tradition 
about  pictorial  chastisements  is  that  punish- 
ments were  always  figured  or  pictured  after  the 
tao  or  method  of  Heaven." 

Here  we  have  a  Chinese  philosopher,  whose 
works  are  still  extant,  laying  down  2,200  years 
ago  what  is  practically  Jeremy  Bentham's 
doctrine  of  pleasures  and  pains.  He  also  alludes 
to  the  principles  of  justice  recommended  by  the 
great  democratic  apostle  liao-tsz  who  lived 
three  centviries  before  him,  and  in  such  a  way  as 
to  suggest  that  he  must  have  been  familiar  with 
Lao-tsz'  writings,  or  even  with  those  of  Kwan-tsz, 
from  whom  Lao-tsz  seems  to  have  copied,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously. 

Although  competent  critics  are  agreed  that 
precise  dates  in  Chinese  history  cannot  be  ascer- 
tained further  back  than  841  B.C.,  there  is  no 
reason  to  doubt  the  main  facts  first  handed  down 
by  oral  tradition,  and  later  recorded  in  their 
chronicles ;  especially  when  these  same  facts  are 
persistently  cited  in  various  connections,  in 
works  of  different  classes,  and  by  each  suc- 
cessive dynasty.  Thus  about  950  B.C.,  150 
years  after  the  establishment  of  a  new  dynasty, 
but  when  times  had  become  degenerate  once 
more,  the  King  or  Emperor  decided  that  law 
reform  was  necessary  in  order  to  maintain 
proper  order  amongst  "the  hundred  families" 
• — as  the  Chinese  people  are  still  in  1917  col- 
lectively termed.  Dr.  Legge  gives  a  full  trans- 
lation of  this  ancient  code  in  the  fifth  section 


B.C.  550-500]        EARLY   CHINESE    CODES  315 

of  his  Chinese  Classics.  As  to  the  second 
historical  code,  during  the  lifetime  of  the  rival 
philosophers  Lao-tsz  and  Confucius,  that  is 
towards  the  end  of  the  sixth  century  before 
Christ,  at  a  time  when  imperial  and  vassal 
China  was  about  to  break  up  into  a  collection 
of  warring  independent  states,  the  prime  min- 
ister of  one  of  these  vassal  states,  who  was 
a  near  relative  of  the  reigning  duke,  and  also 
an  acquaintance  of  Confucius,  for  the  first 
time  in  history  had  the  laws  cast  in  metal  for 
the  information  of  the  people.  The  premier 
of  a  neighbouring  state  disapproved  of  this 
action  as  a  dangerous  innovation  calculated  to 
make  the  ignorant  people  look  to  the  fixed  letter 
of  the  law  instead  of  abiding  by  the  ancient  prin- 
ciples of  propriety,  as  declared  on  the  merits  of 
each  case  after  each  case  had  occurred ;  in 
other  words,  instead  of  accepting  the  themisy 
dike,  or  inspired  judgment  of  the  magistrate. 
Even  the  radical  philosopher  Lao-tsz  had  always 
preached  the  doctrine  of  keeping  the  machinery 
or  "  implements  "  of  State  concealed  from  the 
vulgar  eye ;  and  in  this  particular  instance 
he  was  supported  by  Confucius,  who  argued 
that  the  standard  of  right  and  wrong  would 
henceforth  infallibly  be  transferred  from  the 
ruler's  conscience  to  the  written  law.  He  was 
full  of  admiration  for  the  innovator  on  other 
grounds,  but  not  on  this  one  ;  and  he  outlived 
him  seventeen  years.  This  event  of  defining 
the  law  publicly  was  considered  so  important 
that  dates  were  at  that  time  occasionally  calcu- 
lated from  the  "  year  of  the  casting  of  the  laws  "  ; 
just  as  the  Romans  used  to  count  juridically 
from  the  "  year  of  the  Twelve  Tables,"  which 
were  cast  or  engraved  upon  metal  about  eighty 
years  later  than  their  Chinese  prototype.  These 
laconic  Western  laws,  the  written  foundation  of 


316  LAW  [chap.  XVI 

Roman  jurisprudence,  just  as  the  Chinese  tripod 
laws  may  be  termed  the  remote  basis  of  existing 
Eastern  codes,  exemphfy  very  plainly  the  two 
different  casts  of  mind  in  East  and  West.     The 
Roman  laws  dealt  with  proceedings  in  a  civil 
suit ;    action  by  wager ;   slavery  for  debt ;   the 
absolute    power   of   fathers   over   children    and 
slaves;   inheritances,  testaments,  women's  posi- 
tion,  and  tutorships ;    ownership,  prescription, 
and  transfer  ;   easements ;  crimes  against  person 
and  property,  the  lex  talionis,  lampoons,  the  rate 
of  interest,  and  false  witness;   appeal  from  the 
judge  to  the  people  ;    cost  of  funerals  ;    caste 
marriages ;    pledges  for    sacrificial   debts,    and 
so   on.      Nearly   all  these   matters  were  either 
abandoned  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  family,  or 
were  ignored  by  the  earliest  Chinese  legislators, 
though   several  of  them   find   a  place  in  later 
codes.     So  far  as  we  can  judge  by  more  modern 
categories    of   the   quality    of   ancient    Chinese 
offences,  they  seem  to  have  been  in  the  great 
majority  of  cases  treason,  robbery,  theft,  arson  ; 
or  official  pilfering  and  bribery ;    and  the  only 
questions  for  the  judge  were  whether  to  execute, 
mutilate,  or  flog ;    for  the  ruler  how  to  secure 
justice,  see  that  the  punishment  fit  the  crime, 
and  stave  off  Nature's  wrath  by  making  it  the 
interest  of  his  judges  to  be  just.     In  those  days 
there  was  a  popular  saying  that  "  coffin-makers 
always  like  a  plague,"  meaning  that  "the  police- 
man likes  a  good  case  "  ;    and  in  the  same  way 
it  was  argued  that  if  the  central  government, 
in  its  anxiety  for  tranquillity,  encouraged  those 
local  authorities  who  exhibited  the  greatest  zeal  in 
securing  convictions,  the  inevitable  result  would 
be  to  discourage  the  upright  men  who  worked 
honestly  for  the  people's  interest.     As  with  our 
own  law,  no  child  under  seven  years  of  age  could 
be  held  guilty  of,  or  be  punished  for,  a  felony  : 


B.C.  400-300]  WHP:N  lawyers  disagreed     317 

this  merciful  provision  was  extended  by  the 
ancient  Chinese  legislators  to  old  persons  of 
eighty  and  upwards. 

There  were  two  other  prime  ministers  of  the 
fourth  century  before  Christ  who  made  fpr  them- 
selves lasting  reputations  as  legislators.  One, 
Li-k'wei,  instituted  a  new  land  system,  very 
like  that  proposed  for  China  by  Sir  Robert  Hart 
a  dozen  years  ago,  under  which  every  available 
acre  was  worked  out  for  adequate  but  fair 
taxation.  He  also  collected  into  six  books  or 
main  heads  all  that  was  best  in  the  laws  of  the 
different  feudal  states,  and  composed  therefrom 
a  work  styled  the  "  Legal  Classic,"  which 
may  be  compared  (very  humbly)  with  the 
Roman  Institutes  of  Gains.  Most  of  these 
Chinese  laws  were  connected  with  robbery;  the 
lighter  offences  being  roguery,  getting  over 
city  walls,  gambling,  borrowing,  dishonesty, 
lewdness  and  extravagance,  transgressing  the 
king's  commands,  etc.  This  work  was  car- 
ried to  the  powerful  kingdom  which  150  years 
later  conquered  the  whole  of  China  by  a  young 
man  (Wei  Yang)  who  reorganised,  developed,  and 
became  premier  in  that  kingdom,  where  it  was 
adopted  as  a  kind  of  code,  but  with  considerable 
additions  in  the  direction  of  cruelty.  It  is 
really  this  code  which,  in  a  modified  form,  is  at 
the  root  of  all  later  Chinese  law  of  the  positive 
kind.  In  spite  of  his  great  services  to  this  rising 
state,  the  chancellor  in  question  made  enemies 
by  his  unrelenting  thoroughness,  and  was  in  the 
end  put  to  death  on  the  accession  of  a  new  king 
he  had  offended  whilst  yet  a  mere  prince  or 
heir-apparent.  The  other  man,  Shen  Puh-hai,  is 
often  called  the  "  Chinese  Draco,"  on  account  of 
the  extreme  severity  of  his  laws  ;  in  addition 
to  which  he  was  a  philosopher  of  the  Taoist 
school :    and,  indeed,  at  this  time  there  can  be 


318  LAW  [chap.  XVI 

no  doubt  that  such  precise  philosophical  notions 
as  the  Chinese  were  beginning  to  have  upon  the 
political  branch  of  law  were  drawn  from  the 
stern  and  radical  Lao-tsz  rather  than  from  the 
courtly  ^nd  conservative  Confucius  :  but  that 
does  not  mean  very  much,  for  it  was  then  the 
complaint  of  both  these  philosophers  that  men 
went  on  fighting  for  power  and  personal  in- 
terest, totally  oblivious  of  the  prophets  who 
were  crying  out  in  the  wilderness  for  man's 
salvation  through  propriety  and  right.  Yet 
another  Taoist  philosopher  and  severe  lawyer 
(who  has  left  some  of  his  works  behind  him), 
Han  Fei-tsz,  sought  office  under  the  same 
powerful  revolutionary  state  one  century  later 
than  the  above  two  events  :  this  v/as  just  when 
the  conquest  of  China  was  beginning  ;  but  the 
jealousy  of  the  then  chancellor  (Li  Sz)  of  that 
rising  kingdom,  who  poisoned  his  guest  and 
rival,  prevented  the  lawyer  in  question  from 
having  any  permanent  practical  influence  upon 
China's  destinies.  It  is  curious  to  notice,  how- 
ever, that  most  prime  ministers  of  minor  king- 
doms were  introduced  from  other  states  ;  and 
this  fact  may  possibly  have  something  to  do 
with  the  evolution  of  a  comparatively  modern 
rule  (cf.  p.  261)  that  no  civilian  can  serve  in  his 
own  province. 

All  that  has  preceded  refers  to  the  period 
anterior  to  the  great  revolution  of  the  third 
century  before  Christ,  to  the  destruction  of 
literature  in  213  B.C.,  and  to  the  founding  of  cen- 
tralised absolutism  much  as  it  existed  until  1911. 
In  those  good  old  days,  though  the  punishments 
were  cruel,  there  were  none  of  the  more  modern 
lingering  tortures ;  nor  were  relatives  of  a 
criminal  punished  with  him,  though  it  appears 
that  in  very  ancient  times  at  least  a  threat  of  this 
kind  had  been  m.ade.     Doubtful  cases  were  tried 


B.C.  550]     MAXIMS  ON  THE  LAW'S  MERCY      319 

in  public,  and  the  benefit  of  doubt  was  conceded. 
Moreover,  even  mutilations  were  coupled  with,  or 
excused  by,  a  kind  of  compassionate  utility  :  thus 
{cf.  p.  313)  the  branded  were  made  gate-keepers  ; 
those  deprived  of  a  nose  sent  to  serve  as  frontier 
pickets  ;  those  without  feet,  and  therefore  un- 
able to  chase,  looked  after  valuable  wild  game 
as  park-keepers  ;  those  v/hose  virility  was  cut 
off  tended  the  female  apartments  ;  whilst  the 
unmutilated  convicts  performed  gang-work.  It 
was  one  of  Sir  James  F.  Stephen's  favourite  say- 
ings that,  as  material  civilisation  advanced  and 
we  became  "  more  comfortable,"  men  grew  less 
and  less  inclined  to  make  their  fellow-creatures, 
and  even  their  animals,  more  miserable  than 
was  absolutely  necessary. 

But  there  are  abundant  maxims  and  sayings, 
notwithstanding,  that  prove  the  existence  of 
merciful  feeling  in  the  ancient  rulers.  One, 
quoted  century  by  century  to  this  day,  was  : 
"  Rather  let  a  rogue  escape  than  risk  killing  an 
innocent  man."  Whilst  moderate  justice  was 
considered  appropriate  for  a  normal  political 
condition,  it  was  held  on  the  other  hand  a  wise 
precaution  to  be  exceptionally  severe  when  the 
State  showed  signs  of  anarchy.  Perhaps  the 
oldest  maxim  of  all  is  :  "  In  punishment  be 
intelligently  compassionate."  In  hopelessly  de- 
generate times  the  radical  philosopher  Lao-tsz 
was  in  favour  of  the  fewest  and  simplest  laws  ; 
but  he  insisted  on  prompt,  secret,  and  effective 
application  of  punishment  by  properly  qualified 
officials.  Confucius  (a  little  later)  has  left 
several  striking  remarks  on  record.  He  says  : 
"As  to  convicts,  I  go  with  the  rest ;  we  must 
necessarily  condemn,  if  only  in  order  to  avoid 
condemning  still  more  of  them  later  on."  Again, 
"  The  ancients  understood  better  than  our- 
selves the  art  of  preventing  crime  ;   now  the  best 


320  LAW  [chap,  xvi 

we  can  do  is  to  avoid  punishing  crime  unjustly. 
The  ancient  magistrates  always  lioped  to  save 
a  prisoner's  life  :  now  we  seek  to  prove  it 
forfeit.  Better  let  a  real  criminal  go  free,  how- 
ever, than  slay  an  innocent  man."  Once  more  : 
"  I  allow  one  generation  to  a  new  dynasty  for 
the  gradual  introduction  of  benevolent  rule, 
and  I  allow  a  hundred  years  to  abolish  killing 
and  mutilation  altogether."  "  A  benevolent 
ruler  must  have  courage  too ;  his  rectitude 
manifests  itself  in  preventing  crime."  "  Unjust 
punishment  damages  the  administration,  and  a 
bad  administration  touches  each  man's  person." 
"  Government  must  strictly  execute  its  own 
terms."  Kwan-tsz,  however,  had  said  nearly 
all  this  two  centuries  earlier.  Two  centuries 
later  than  Confucius,  Mencius  has  a  few  re- 
marks to  make  :  he  allows  considerable  lati- 
tude, and  even  indulgence,  to  a  ruler  so  long 
as  that  ruler  keeps  in  sympathetic  touch  with 
the  people  ;  but  he  says  :  "  No  truly  benevolent 
ruler  will  slay  an  innocent  man,  even  to  make 
secure  his  own  rule." 

The  great  Chinese  conquest  revolution  of 
2,150  years  ago  introduced  several  new  crimes 
as  well  as  many  m^onstrous  punishments.  The 
chief  intellectual  agent  in  it  was  the  chancellor, 
mentioned  above,  who  poisoned  his  visitor.  It 
was,  at  his  recommendation,  made  an  offence 
punishable  with  death  to  conceal  books,  or  to 
own  any  except  the  few  agricultural  and  scien- 
tific works  which  were  not  on  the  ''  Index 
Prohibitory  "  ;  fearful  tortures  were  introduced, 
and  three  generations  of  relatives  were  involved 
in  one  man's  political  crime.  The  name  for 
*'  Emperor"  (originally  written  "self-ruler,"  but 
later  "white  ruler"),  up  to  1911  still  in  use,  was 
then  first  introduced,  and  a  homogeneous  system 
of  administration  in  all  important  matters  was 


B.C.  200]      VOX  POPULI  LEX  SUPREMA  321 

effectively  established  all  over  China.  But 
though  this  powerful  innovator  was  an  able  man, 
his  methods  were  altogether  too  tyrannical,  and 
after  his  death  in  210  B.C.,  and  then  after  eight 
more  years  of  very  chivalrous  and  picturesque 
fighting,  a  new  and  permanent  dynasty  was 
founded  on  practically  the  same  lines  :  ever 
since  that  things  have  remained  very  much  in 
statu  quo,  even  down  to  our  own  days. 

In  accordance  with  one  of  the  ancient  politico- 
legal  maxims  just  mentioned,  the  new  dispen- 
sation began  by  abolishing  the  whole  network  of 
harassing  law,  and  by  enacting  three  simple 
rules  for  the  orderly  government  of  the  Empire ; 
to  wit,  deatli  for  homicide  ;  compensation  and 
imprisonment  for  wounds  and  robbery;  all  else 
being  left  to  the  people  themselves.  This 
was  called  the  "  Tripartite  Bargain  with  the 
Elders  of  the  People,"  and  the  "all  else  left 
to  the  people"  still  holds  good,  whether  inten- 
tionally or  no,  in  great  measure  to  this  day. 
The  frank  and  tactful  geniality  of  the  new 
ruler's  personality  has  probably  more  to  do 
with  the  credit  his  memory  still  enjoys  than  the 
intrinsic  wisdom  of  his  summary  legal  methods  ; 
but,  however  that  may  be,  his  "  three  short 
rules  "  have  established  a  reputation  in  China 
little  short  of  that  achieved  by  King  John's 
Magna  Charta  amongst  ourselves.  But  the 
Chinese  are  and  always  have  been  very  grateful 
to  their  rulers  for  small  mercies,  and  they  have 
always  been  found  ready  to  idealise  any  gracious 
sovereign  acts.  The  Emperor,  under  the  guid- 
ance of  an  astute  chancellor,  rightly  refrained 
from  introducing  new  measures,  and  was  prob- 
ably only  giving  fuller  effect  to  ancient  laws 
and  customs  v/hen  he  granted  this  short  charter ; 
and  this  was  apparently  all  that  King  John 
did,  except  that,  unlike  the  Chinese  ruler,  the 


322  LAW  [chap,  xvi 

English  king  had  only  the  grace  to  do  it  under 
compulsion.  The  vicarious  punishment  of  rela- 
tives was  abolished,  but  official  superiors  and 
witnesses  were  obliged  to  denounce  offenders. 
However,  the  much-vaunted  three  simple  rules 
were  soon  found  insufficient  for  practical  use 
when  things  quieted  down  ;  when  the  sword 
gave  way  to  the  ploughshare  ;  and  when  the  new 
dynasty  felt  secure  in  its  power.  The  next 
chancellor,  who  (as  also  his  successor  in  office) 
professed  the  "  masterly  inactivity  "  principles 
preached  300  years  before  that  by  the  philosopher 
Lao-tsz,  found  it  necessary  to  reintroduce  vi- 
carious punishment  for  treason,  and  to  select  as 
many  of  the  general  laws  of  the  revolutionary 
and  conquering  dynasty  but  recently  ousted  as 
were  suited  to  the  people's  old  traditions,  and 
also  to  their  changed  position  ;  he  proceeded 
to  construct  therefrom  a  code  in  nine  heads 
(being  in  effect  the  six  heads  of  the  "  Legal 
Classic"  plus  three  new  ones),  which  code,  sub- 
ject of  course  to  extensive  alterations,  has  from 
dynasty  to  dynasty  always  served  as  the  basis 
of  Chinese  law  ;  just  as  the  Corpus  Juris  of  the 
Christian  Emperor  Justinian  forms  in  a  way  the 
practical  basis  of  European  law  as  a  whole, 
affecting  indirectly  even  the  English  and  Scotch 
statutory  laws,  and  in  some  instances  the 
decisions  under  our  common  law.  We  have 
already  seen  that  revolutionary  China  had 
borrowed  its  Institutes  of  Law  from  an  active 
legal  author  in  one  of  the  feudal  states ;  and  thus 
we  have  an  unbroken  historical  chain  extending 
back  from  our  own  time  for  about  3,000  years, 
with  no  admixture  whatever  of  foreign  notions, 
or,  at  all  events,  of  foreign  law.  The  preceding 
dynasty's  revolutionary  law  against  concealing 
books  was  abolished  by  the  new  dynasty 
founder's  son,  and  literature  was  soon  restored 


B.C.  200-130]      A  CHINESE  ANTONINUS  823 

to  its  former  influence,    after   a  quarter   of  a 
century  of  extinction.  jU 

Now  we  come  to  a  very  prominent  turning- 
point  in  Chinese  legal  history.  The  founder,  his 
usurping  empress-widow,  and  his  strictly  legiti- 
mate son  by  her  had  all  passed  away;  the 
obnoxious  law  against  concealing  books  had,  as 
we  have  said,  been  repealed,  and  another  son,  born 
in  less  honourable  wedlock,  sat  on  the  imperial 
throne.  On  account  of  his  calm,  philosophic, 
and  humane  temperament,  Han  Wen  Ti  is 
occasionally  styled  by  Europeans  the  Marcus 
Aurelius  of  China.  His  first  act  was  to  issue 
the  following  edict  :  "  Enforcements  of  the  law 
are  executive  acts,  the  object  of  which  is  to 
prevent  violence  and  assist  the  well-disposed  : 
to  visit  the  sins  of  convicted  criminals  on  inno- 
cent parents,  spouses,  brothers,  sisters  and 
children  seems  to  me  most  unreasonable.  I  wish 
for  a  report."  His  counsellors,  after  due  de- 
liberation, advised  that  it  had  hitherto  been 
found  good  policy  to  make  people  feel  uncom- 
fortable in  anticipation  by  visiting  upon  them 
the  sins  of  their  kinsmen  after  crimes  committed, 
and  that  it  would  be  better  not  to  make  any 
change.  A  second  decree  ran :  "  When  the 
law  is  meet,  the  people  are  honest ;  when  punish- 
ment is  appropriate,  the  people  accept  it  without 
murmur.  Moreover,  officials  are  supposed  to 
act  as  guides  :  if,  instead  of  guiding  the  people, 
they  punish  them  irregularly,  they  become 
tyrants.  I  wish  for  a  further  report."  On  this 
the  counsellors  gave  way  :  "  Your  Majesty's 
merciful  will  covers  far  more  ground  than  we 
can  presume  to  understand  the  necessity  for." 
To  illustrate  the  continuity  of  Chinese  history, 
it  may  be  mentioned  that  this  edict  of  over 
2,100  years  ago  is  still  on  record  ;  is  quite  intel- 
ligible to  modern  ears ;  and  still  forms  part  of 
23 


324  LAW  [chap,  xvi 

the  stock  legal  diction,  just  as  does  the  celebrated 
declaration  of  the  English  barons  upon  the  sub- 
ject of  legitimacy  :  "  We  will  not  change  the  laws 
of  England  which  have  hitherto  been  accepted 
and  approved  by  our  ancestors"  {cf.  p.  288). 

But,  if  we  inquire  closer  into  Chinese  history, 
we  find  that  this  picturesque  event  is  only 
another  case  of  idealising  ;  not  to  mention  his 
grandson  and  most  illustrious  successor,  whose 
financial  straits  and  palace  intrigues  led  him  to 
enact  many  hasty  and  cruel  laws,  that  very 
"Marcus  Aurelius"  himself  was,  during  a  sub- 
sequent rebellion,  unfortunately  induced  to  de- 
part' from  his  own  noble  principles.  There  was, 
however,  one  other  cause  celebre  during  the  reign 
of  this  hum.ane  Emperor  :  it  happened  after  he 
had  been  on  the  throne  for  nearly  twenty-five 
years,  and  the  anecdote  is  as  well  known  in 
China  as  the  story  of  Brutus  and  his  condemned 
sons  Titus  and  Tiberius  is  known  in  Europe. 
A  Chinese  physician  and  local  official  was  sum- 
moned to  court  for  peculation,  a  crime  which 
rendered  him  liable,  under  the  new  code  as 
under  the  older  ones,  to  the  penalty  of  mutila- 
tion :  having  five  daughters,  but  no  son,  he 
bewailed  the  luckless  fate  which  deprived  him 
of  a  representative  capable  of  sacrificing  him- 
self upon  the  altar  of  filial  duty  in  accordance 
with  the  maxim  "  A  father's  debt  the  son 
repays."  The  youngest  daughter,  stung  by 
these  reproaches,  and  knowing  that  her  father 
was  the  victim  of  private  spite,  insisted  on 
accompanying  her  parent  to  the  imperial  courts 
where  she  pleaded  his  case  before  the  Emperor 
with  such  eloquence  and  effect  that  his  Majesty 
at  once  decided  to  abolish  as  barbarous  the 
punishment  of  mutilation.  Hard  labour  at  the 
Great  Wall,  shaving  the  head,  wearing  the  heavy 
yoke,  bastinado  and  flogging, ^ — these  were  sub- 


B.C.  150-A.D.  150]  THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY     325 

stituted   for    mutilation,    and    really    form    the 
nucleus  of  the  modern  system. 

The  above  and  similar  imperial  orders  were, 
it  must  be  confessed,  often  rather  symptoms  of 
growing  change  than  definite  registrations  of 
permanent  radical  improvements  ;  for,  owing  to 
China's  enormous  size,  and  to  the  apathy  of 
local  rulers,  satraps,  and  magistrates,  the  imperial 
decrees,  unless  repeated  and  persisted  with,  seem 
often  to  have  remained  a  dead  letter,  especially 
where  only  the  interests  of  the  masses  were  con- 
cerned, and  where  no  povv^erful  influence  was  at 
work  to  insist  on  following  up  the  order.  The 
first  of  Chinese  true  historians  was  him.self 
cruelly  deprived  of  his  manhood  by  the  grandson 
just  mentioned  of  this  humane  Emperor,  and 
this  for  the  purely  technical  offence  of  remon- 
strating with  the  monarch  in  favour  of  a  defeated 
general ;  and  he  leaves  on  record  a  pathetic 
letter  to  a  friend  bewailing  in  resigned  terms  his 
miserable  fate,  and  characterising  himself  as 
"  what's  left  from  the  knife  and  the  saw."  It 
was  this  Emperor  who  encouraged  informers  and 
delators,  and  developed  the  idea  of  forcing  out 
confessions  under  torture,  a  process  which  I 
cannot  find  to  have  existed  in  more  ancient  times. 
Still,  notwithstanding  the  caprice  or  weakness 
of  this  or  that  ruler,  the  progress  in  the  direction 
of  reason  and  mercy  was  now  fairly  steady  : 
doubtful  cases  were  reheard  at  the  capital ;  the 
local  authorities  were  urged  to  use  prompt  dis- 
patch, and  not  to  confine  people  too  long  upon 
mere  suspicion  ;  steps  were  taken  to  check  the 
bribery  of  officials  and  the  corruption  of  clerks 
and  police  ;  a  growing  disinclination  to  extort 
confessions  under  the  lash  or  rack  was  mani- 
fested ;  fasting  and  solemn  formalities  were 
enjoined  when  the  time  for  carrying  out  death 
sentences  approached ;  the  number  of  bastinado 


326  LAW  [chap,  xvi 

strokes  administered  was  more  than  once  re- 
duced along  the  whole  line  of  offences  ;  in  spite 
of  the  evergrowing  additions  to  the  law  cate- 
gories, earnest  endeavours  were  made  to  simplify 
the  law  as  much  as  possible  :  and  generally,  it 
may  be  stated  that  during  the  400  years  of  Han 
dynasty  rule  (200  B.C.  to  a.d.  200)  a  steady 
advance  took  place  in  the  direction  of  mildness. 
For  many  centuries  after  that  the  question 
of  reintroducing  the  mutilation  punishments 
came  up  for  discussion  ;  dynasty  after  dynasty 
"secured  the  stag"  (as  the  Chinese  poets  say 
when  they  refer  to  the  contests  for  empire) ; 
and  each  reigning  house  naturally  had  its  own 
special  code,  but  always  based  on  the  samiC  old 
general  principles,  modified  to  suit  the  exigencies 
of  the  times.  There  never  were  any  surprises  or 
rival  doctrines  in  China,  such  as  our  Gavelkind 
in  Kent,  and  Borough-English  in  other  parts  of 
England,  which  flatly  contradict  the  ordinary 
laws  of  descent  and  inheritance.*  Referring 
back  now  for  light,  we  may  be  disposed  to  ignore 
the  codes  of  the  minor  dynasties  that  only 
reigned  for  a  generation,  in  favour  of  those  of 
renowned  houses  which  maintained  the  throne 
for  centuries  ;  but  that  would  be  a  mistake  : 
each  new  dynasty  of  course  assumed  (and  hoped) 
that  it  would  continue,  so  to  speak,  for  ever. 
Consequently  we  find  that  many  of  the  most 
far-reaching  and  even  best  improvements  were 
often  introduced  by  short-lived  reigning  houses 
that  only  endured  a  lifetime  or  two.  The 
general  tendency  of  change  ran  in  the  direction 
of  sparing  life,  facilitating  appeals  in  doubtful 
cases,  lightening  the  load  of  fetters,  flogging  on 

^  Local  rules  of  inheritance,  etc.,  belong  to  private  and  patri- 
archal family  customs,  which  very  rarely  come  before  the 
imperial  jurisdiction.  See  the  present  writer's  Comparative 
Chinese  Family  Law,  1878  (out  of  print),  originally  published  in 
the  China  Review  for  1878. 


A.D.  200-500]  OLD  LINES  OF  LAW  FOLLOWED  327 

parts  of  the  body  less  susceptible  of  vital  injury, 
and  sparing  the  modesty  of  females.  The 
principle  was  laid  down,  moreover,  that  women 
were  only  responsible  for  the  crimes  of  the 
family  into  which  they  married,  and  not  of  that 
which  they  had  quitted.  In  the  middle  of  the 
third  century  of  our  era  there  were  thirty-seven 
groups  of  punishment  for  ordinary  offences 
ranged  under  the  following  heads  :  death  three, 
shaving  four,  corporal  without  mutilation  three, 
hard  labour  three,  ransomable  eleven,  fines  six, 
miscellaneous  satisfaction  seven  ;  and  the  chief 
heads  under  which  offences  were  arranged  were, 
as  of  old,  robbery  (not  including  terrorising  or 
trafficking  in  human  beings),  thefts,  cheating, 
defrauding,  trespassing,  falsifying  royal  acts  of 
state,  etc.  Treason  was  still  punished  by  cutting 
in  two  at  the  waist,  but  responsibility  did  not 
extend  to  grandparents  and  grandchildren ;  for 
rebellion  the  whole  three  generations  suffered ; 
their  bodies  were  pickled  for  exposure  in  the 
market-place,  and  their  dwellings  rased  to  the 
ground.  In  homicides  the  principle  was  recog- 
nised that  relatives  might  take  vengeance,  but 
not  after  an  imperial  amnesty  had  been  granted 
to  the  murderer.  In  the  whole  history  of  China 
I  have  not  come  across  a  single  case  of  civil 
jurisprudence  in  the  strict  sense,  i.e.  where  any 
abstract  rights  between  individuals  have  been 
threshed  out  with  considerations  touching  rele- 
vancy of  evidence,  damage  to  character,  equit- 
able set-off,  nice  definitions  in  contract,  and  so 
on.  All  cases  brought  before  the  Crown  are, 
so  to  speak,  brought  up  by  special  reference, 
because  the  official  judge,  or  the  family,  or  the 
commercial  court  below  cannot  settle  them,  and 
applies  for  assistance. 

For   three   centuries,    280-580,    North   China 
was  under  Tartar  rule,  and  the  native  dynasties 


328  LAW  [chap,  xvi 

for  the  first  time  had  to  cross  the  Great  River 
(or  Yang-tsze  Kiang,  as  we  usually  call  it)  and 
fashion  the  best  empire  they  could  out  of  Chinese 
colonists  and  southern  races  only  half  Chinese. 
The  march  of  law  and  order  was  about  the  same 
in  both  halves  of  China  :  for  if  the  literary 
classes  had  carried  part  of  their  civilisation  over 
the  river  with  them,  the  Tartars  remained  in 
possession  of  the  old  civilised  soil  and  docu- 
ments ;  and  thus  both  empires  based  their 
legal  principles  and  humane  improvements  upon 
the  same  old  classics  and  unshakable  ideals. 
Strangling  is  now  heard  of  for  the  first  time 
as  a  death  penalty  ;  less  grave  than  decapita- 
tion, because  the  body  remains  undivided  for 
reappearance  in  the  next  world ;  the  ancient 
punishment  of  tearing  the  body  to  pieces  by 
means  of  horses  is  formally  revived  by  both 
dynastic  groups.  No  new  legal  principle  of  any 
kind  is  introduced  by  the  Tartars,  but  one  or 
two  droll  punishments  certainly  suggest  foreign 
origin  ;  for  instance,  wizards  were  condemned 
to  carry  a  ram  on  the  back,  embrace  a  dog,  and 
jump  into  a  pond.  In  China  proper,  though  the 
laws  against  inciting  the  people  with  baseless 
talk  are  severe,  I  have  never  discovered  any  law 
against  wizardry  or  religion.  Both  in  the  north 
and  south  the  "  grievance  drum  "  was  intro- 
duced, so  that  persons  having  a  grievance  could 
call  forcible  attention  of  the  Emperor  and  his 
officers  to  an  unredressed  wrong.  The  native 
procedure  of  the  Tartar  dynasties  was  of  course 
quite  summary,  the  tribe  chiefs  disposing  of 
causes  in  a  rough-and-ready  way  in  front  of 
the  Khan's  or  sub-Khan's  tent ;  as  nomads 
they  possessed  no  fetters  or  prisons,  and  being 
destitute  of  any  native  system  of  writing  (un- 
less they  kept  a  Chinese  scribe),  they  made 
arrests   and   recorded   judgments   by  means   of 


A.D.  800-500]         LATER    CODIFICATION  329 

wooden  tallies  :    most  homicides  could  be  ran- 
somed  with   cattle  and  horses,  as  by  our  own 
weregild  ;    but  all  treasons  were  punished  with 
pitiless  extermination  of  the  family.     Yet  just 
as  the  rude   Goths  at   exactly  the   same  date 
carved  kingdoms  and  made  excellent  codes  out 
of  the  debris  of  Roman  civilisation  and  law,  so 
did  the  Tartars  rapidly  acquire  at  least  a  veneer 
of    Chinese    refinement ;     and    some    of    their 
adapted  Chinese  codes  are    as    much    entitled 
to    respect,    when    compared    with    the    codes 
of  the  pure  Chinese  dynasties,  as  the  Edict  of 
Theodoric  the  Eastern  Goth  or  the  Breviary  of 
Alaric  the  Western  Goth,  which  did  excellent 
duty  in  North  Italy,  France,  and  Spain.     Curi- 
ously enough,  a  great  Chinese  statesman  named 
Ts'ui  Hao,  who  acted  as  premier  and  historian  to 
the  Tartars  of  the  fifth  century,  was  put  to  death 
with  his  three  generations  for  telling  the  plain 
truth   about   the  Tartar   origin   in  his   history. 
It  is  now  that  we  first  begin  to  hear  of  the 
characteristic  Chinese  punishment  known  to  us 
as  the  cangue,  or  wooden  collar,  a  kind  of  yoke 
or  portable  stocks.     A  good  deal  of  the  legisla- 
tion consists  in  defining  the  weight  and  size  of 
this  instrument,  the  thickness  and  smoothness 
of  the   whip    and   bastinado,    ameliorating   the 
lot  of  prisoners,  arranging  the  rate  of  ransom  in 
copper  and  silk,   and  so  on.     Flogging  on  the 
back  was  abolished  because  one  Emperor  had 
chanced  to  see  a  picture  of  the  human  anatomy, 
and  had  discovered  that  the  bowels  were  peril- 
ously near  the  spine.     There  is  even  one  solitary 
instance  in  which  the  Buddhist  desire  to  save 
life  is  coupled  with  an  appeal  to  old  classical 
principles  as  a  reason  for  extending  the  system 
of  ransoming  crimes. 

The  second  great  turning  period  in  Chinese 
legal  history  was  the  seventh  century  of  our 


880  LAW  [chap,  xvi 

era,  when,  after  many  centuries  of  interminable 
civil  strife  and  foreign  war,  China  was  once 
more  permanently  reunited  under  a  vigorous 
native  dynasty.  Even  before  the  sixth  century 
was  out,  China  had  been  reconquered  by  a 
native  house  of  great  intelligence  and  energy  ; 
but  excessive  ambition  soon  led  to  its  premature 
supersession.  Judgments  had  now  (seventh 
century)  to  be  written  ;  law  students  were  for 
the  first  time  trained ;  the  punishment  of 
family  members  was  abolished ;  the  triple  recon- 
sideration of  death  sentences  was  introduced  ; 
and,  generally,  some  far-reaching  reforms  were 
ordered,  if  not  actually  made.  The  principles 
of  Buddhism  had  by  this  time  been  thoroughly 
examined;  and  moreover  Christianity,  the  Per- 
sian religions,  the  teaching  of  Mahomet,  had 
all  been  introduced  into  China :  therefore  there 
was  some  opportunity  to  compare  notes,  and  to 
soften  away  the  asperities  of  the  old  punitory 
codes,  though  it  must  be  confessed  that  none 
of  the  foreign  systems  is  officially  honoured  by 
the  least  mention  ;  a  little  later  the  Manichean 
disciplines  seem  to  have  attracted  attention. 
Amongst  the  distinguished  officers  who  received 
a  commission  to  reform  the  laws  on  the  basis 
of  the  improvements  introduced  by  the  short 
dynasty  (580-620)  just  mentioned,  but  minus  its 
severities,  was  a  strong  supporter  of  Buddhism  ; 
and  yet  curiously  enough  he  was  one  of  those 
who  pleaded  for  the  retention  of  mutilation  as 
a  merciful  respite  from  death.  But  the  Emperor 
was  firm,  and  from  this  date  the  ancient  Five 
Punishments,  as  they  have  been  above  ^  described, 
were  theoretically  re-established  almost  exactly 
as  they  now  are  ;  that  is  to  say,  death  (decapi- 
tation and  strangling)  ;  three  degrees  of  banish- 
ment with  or  without  flogging  and  hard  labour  to 
remote  provinces ;  five  degrees  of  penal  servitude 

1  p.  313. 


A.D.  600-700]      THE  MESHES  OF  THE  LAW     831 

with  or  without  flogging  to  places  in  one's  native 
province  ;  eight  degrees  of  tlie  greater  bastinado, 
and  five  of  the  lesser  bastinado  ;  twenty  punish- 
ments in  all — although  even  so  late  as  1078  the 
question  of  re-introducing  literal  nose  and  foot 
cutting  was  unsuccessfully  mooted  again.  Per- 
mission to  commit  suicide  at  home  now  appears 
for  the  first  time  amongst  the  favoured  official 
classes.  Offences  were  grouped  under  twelve 
heads  :  statutory  definitions,  or  qualifications  of 
the  ancient  statutes  ;  protection  of  the  Emperor  ; 
questions  of  official  duty  ;  marriages  ;  imperial 
mews  and  stores  ;  independent  political  action  ; 
theft  and  robbery  ;  litigiousness  ;  cheating  and 
falsifying  ;  miscellaneous  statutory  offences  ; 
deserters  and  escaped  prisoners  ;  trials.  There 
were,  as  in  ancient  times,  eight  grounds  upon 
which  special  privileges  might  be  claimed  after 
sentence,  but  not  in  the  case  of  the  "  ten  odious 
crimes,"  of  which  we  now  first  hear.  Nothing 
could  be  more  unsatisfactory  or  indefinite  from 
our  juridical  point  of  view  than  this  clumsy 
classification,  which  with  slight  variation  seems 
to  have  remained  almost  unchanged  for  1,400 
years  :  of  course  it  can  only  be  made  even  par- 
tially intelligible  to  us  by  examining  one  by 
one  the  specific  crimes  ranged  under  each  head- 
ing ;  but  even  on  the  face  of  it  as  it  stands,  it 
will  be  apparent,  in  spite  of  vagueness,  that 
political  offences  occupy  the  chief  place  in  the 
Chinese  legislator's  imagination;  and  perhaps 
that  may  be  the  reason  why  the  Chinese,  as  a 
people,  have  always  been  obstinately  inclined 
to  leave  politics  to  those  whose  business  it  is  to 
run  the  machine  of  state,  and  have  invariably 
managed  their  own  private  affairs  with  the 
minimum  of  application  for  state  assistance  :  so 
far  as  I  am  aware,  there  has  never  been  asserted 
a   claim   for   popular  rights   beyond   the   mere 


332  LAW  [chap,  xvi 

right  of  being  left  with  a  bare  competence 
for  wife  and  family.  The  people  of  China 
have  never  "  cornered,"  still  less  executed  their 
sovereigns. 

It  is  to  the  seventh  century  that  belongs 
the  definite  establishment  of  another  great 
principle  which  has  possessed  great  vitality, 
and  that  is  what  we  have  called  the  triple  ap- 
plications for  a  death-warrant.  The  Emperor 
having  had  reason  to  regret  the  fact  that  he 
had  hastily  ordered  the  execution  of  certain 
offending  courtiers  or  statesmen,  gave  peremp- 
tory instructions  that  in  future  his  commands 
were  to  be  ignored  until  he  had  repeated  them 
three  times  at  decent  intervals  extending  over  at 
least  two  days ;  so  that,  to  use  our  English  ex- 
pression, his  Majesty  could  sleep  upon  his  wrath ; 
moreover,  warrants  for  execution  were  not  to  be 
forwarded  any  longer  by  express  messenger, 
the  idea  being  that  the  prisoner  should  enjoy 
every  possible  surviving  chance  of  a  reprieve. 
There  are  some  grounds  for  supposing  that  in 
very  ancient  times  this  triple  appeal  to  con- 
science existed  in  the  form  of  a  thrice-repeated 
pardon,  the  last  cry  of  which  was  by  a  legal 
fiction  supposed  to  be  too  late  to  overtake  the 
prisoner. 

A  few  special  instances  of  Crown  Cases  Re- 
served may  be  mentioned  as  illustrating  the  con- 
current effect  of  scriptural  injunction  and  ever- 
changing  legal  precept  in  evolving  the  principle 
of  a  judgment,  or  what  our  lawyers  call,  in 
imitation  of  the  Roman  jurisconsults,  the  ratio 
decidendi.  A  youth  deliberately  murdered  his 
father's  enemy,  and  was,  on  the  face  of  it,  liable 
to 'execution.  But,  it  was  argued,  the  ancient 
Book  of  Rites  says  that  a  son  cannot  live  under 
the  same  sky  with  his  father's  enemy  ;  whilst 
Confucius' s  annotated  history  asserts  in  general 


A.D.  630]       AVENGING    ONE'S    FATHER  333 

terms  the  duty  of  a  son  to  avenge  his  father's 
wrong.  The  law  nowhere  actually  lays  down 
that  such  homicide  is  specifically  excusable  ;  if 
it  did,  it  would  appear  to  encourage  murder  and 
family  feuds  :  still,  the  law  is  confessedly  based 
on  the  general  principles  of  the  classics  ;  hence 
in  this  case  there  is  apparent  conflict  between 
general  legal  principle  and  specific  law.  It  was 
decided  that  each  such  case  must  be  separately 
reported  and  judged  upon  its  merits.  Another 
case  occurred  of  a  youth  kiUing  a  man  whom  he 
saw  in  the  act  of  attacking  his  father,  and  then 
voluntarily  giving  himself  up  to  justice.  It  was 
argued  from  Confucius' s  history  that  the  motive 
of  an  act  should  be  taken  into  account  in  pro- 
portioning a  sentence ;  here  the  youth  gave 
himself  up,  so  that  escape  or  concealment  was 
not  in  question  :  he  therefore  received  a  reduced 
punishment.  In  one  case  the  Emperor  had  not 
the  heart  to  execute  a  corrupt  official  at  Canton, 
who  at  an  earlier  stage  in  his  career  had  done 
him  good  service.  The  Emperor  said  :  "  I  am 
supposed  to  carry  out  impartially  on  behalf  of 
Heaven  the  rewards  and  punishments  that  may 
be  due.  In  this  case  I  am  afraid  I  am  manipu- 
lating the  law  to  the  discredit  of  Heaven.  Put 
up  a  matshed  in  the  southern  suburb  for  three 
days  so  that  I  may  do  penance  at  the  Altar  of 
Heaven  there."  (This  singular  compromise  with 
Heaven  recalls  the  expression  colpo  di  stato  di 
Domeniddio  used  apologetically  by  His  Holiness 
Pope  Pius  IX  to  excuse  his  appointm.ent  to 
Westminster  of  Archbishop  Manning.)  The  same 
romantic  Emperor  once  in  a  fit  of  generosity 
sent  to  their  homes  390  prisoners  whose  names 
were  down  for  execution,  ordering  them  to  come 
up  for  judgment  after  the  autumn.  Not  a  man 
failed,  and  so  all  vv^ere  pardoned. 

In  another  instance  the  T'ang  Emperor  de- 


384  LAW  [chap,  xvi 

clined  to  sanction  the  death  of  an  elder  brother 
serving  at  a  distance  when  the  younger  brother 
was  found  guilty  of  rebellion  :  eleven  hundred 
years  later  a  Manchu  Emperor  took  exactly  the 
same  step.  Another  Manchu  Emperor  had  a 
father's  enemy  case  on  appeal  brought  before 
him,  and  reversed  the  decision  of  the  T'ang 
dynasty.  But  in  the  later  case  the  circumstances 
differed  ;  a  son  killed  the  son  of  the  convicted 
murderer  of  his  own  father  ;  the  murderer  being 
in  the  hands  of  the  law,  the  son  had  no  vengeance 
to  satisfy,  for  the  murderer  was  legally  dead  : 
moreover,  by  killing  the  murderer's  son,  two 
lives  were  taken  from  one  family  in  satisfaction 
of  one  life  in  the  other.  Hence  the  murdering 
son  was  sentenced  to  decapitation,  subject  to 
the  chance  of  a  general  amnesty  taking  place 
before  his  name  should  be  finally  ticked  off  for 
execution.  In  the  case  of  an  escaped  murderer, 
who  delivered  himself  up  on  hearing  that  his 
father  had  been  arrested,  a  conflict  of  opinions 
arose  :  it  was  argued  that  at  no  period  of  Chinese 
law  had  murderers  been  let  off  death  ;  however, 
the  Manchu  Emperor  considered  the  man's 
behaviour  "  closely  approaching  nobleness,"  and 
respited  the  decapitation  for  banishment  and 
a  flogging.  But  to  go  back.  After  the  wars 
and  revolution  which  accompanied  the  fall  of 
the  great  T'ang  dynasty  there  was  only  one  copy 
of  the  laws  to  be  found  ;  but  this  was  enough, 
and  it  formed  the  basis  from  which  the  next 
group  of  short-lived  dynasties  fashioned  their 
codes.  To  this  period  belongs  the  abolition  of 
confiscation  of  property  and  of  the  responsibility 
of  relatives  in  all  cases  but  treason ;  the  cleansing 
of  prisons,  medical  treatment  of  prisoners,  de- 
cent conduct  towards  mere  witnesses,  and  regular 
tabulation  of  the  rates  of  ransom  :  but  the 
anarchy    was    too    great   for   these    important 


A.D.  970-1650]        THE   MANCHU   LAWS  335 

reforms  to  be  properly  consolidated ;  however 
that  may  be,  in  any  case  they  were  symptoms 
of  healthy  progress. 

A  law  of  the  year  977  (native  Chinese  Sung 
dynasty)  made  the  murder  by  a  stepmother  of 
her  husband's  earlier  son  punishable  as  an 
ordinary  homicide.  In  1729  the  Manchu  Em- 
peror made  the  offence  punishable  as  before  by 
strangulation  if  the  murder  deprived  the  hus- 
band of  heirs.  If  the  husband  was  dead,  the 
stepmother  must  not  have  the  privilege  of  ransom 
accorded  to  women,  but  her  own  favourite  son, 
if  any,  must  be  strangled.  If  no  son,  then  she 
must  quit  the  family  and  go  back  to  her  own 
family,  her  husband's  property  being  given  to 
the  murdered  son's  brothers  and  sons  in  equal 
shares.  It  is  about  900  years  ago  that  the  linger- 
ing death  punishm-cnt  (abolished  in  1905)  first 
appears  both  in  South  China  and  amongst  the 
Kitan  Tartars  ruling  North  China  :  it  seems  to 
have  been  reserved  for  the  Mongols  (1260-1368) 
in  North  China  to  introduce  it  on  a  regular 
scale. 

Instead  of  plodding  on  from  this  point  with 
the  somewhat  monotonous  history  of  Chinese 
legal  changes,  it  may  be  more  interesting  to  start 
back  from  the  position  of  to-day,  and  to  work 
our  way  in  a  reverse  direction  to  the  point  where 
we  have  broken  off.  The  present  Manchu 
dynasty  reigned  without  a  break  for  over  267 
years,  and  the  very  first  thing  the  new  Emperor 
did  on  his  accession  in  1644  was  to  ordain  that 
the  laws  of  the  native  Chinese  Ming  dynasty — 
which  had  governed  China  for  nearly  300  years 
(1368-1643)- — should  be  modified  so  as  to  include 
Manchu  customs,  and  should  be  reissued  as  the 
Laws  of  the  Manchu  Dynasty.  In  dealing  with 
the  question  of  general  amnesties  on  joyful 
occasions,  the  responsible  statesmen  of  the  day 


336  LAW  [chap,  xvi 

gave  signal  proof  of  the  continuity  of  legal 
history  by  quoting  the  dictum  of  a  codifier 
1,050  years  before  them  :  he  had  asserted  that 
"  the  states  which  find  pardons  unnecessary  are 
the  states  vfhich  have  just  laws  "  :  he  also  cited 
a  second  codifier  of  600  years  back,  who  had 
quoted  the  classical  saying  that  "  appeal  to 
principle  Vv^as  sufficient  for  the  good,  even  though 
chastisement  might  be  the  sole  effective  appeal 
to  the  bad  man."  The  Emperor,  in  justifying 
what  may  be  styled  "benefit  of  clergy,"  or 
special  trials  in  favour  of  officials,  and  the  exemp- 
tion of  Manchus  from  certain  punitory  degrada- 
tions, referred  back  to  the  eight  privileges  intro- 
duced about  1200  B.C.,  i.e.  the  privileges  of 
blood,  friendship,  virtue,  abilitj^,  service,  rank, 
zeal,  and  hospitality  (the  last  referring  to  am- 
bassadors). In  another  instance  reference  was 
made  to  the  plea  used  by  the  girl  who  tramped 
after  her  father  to  the  court  of  the  Chinese  Marcus 
Aurelius,  namely,  that  "  a  man  once  judicially 
slain  can  never  come  to  life  again,  however  inno- 
cent he  may  be." 

The  second  Emperor,  the  famous  K'ang-hi, 
likewise  made  many  appeals  to  classical  prin- 
ciples, and,  like  his  successor,  laid  down  very 
definite  rules  exempting  women  from  the  neces- 
sity of  appearing  before  the  courts  :  all  female 
witnesses  and  persons  concerned  in  a  case 
(provided  they  were  not  themselves  accused) 
were  to  be  examined  on  commission  in  their 
own  houses.  The  treason  laws  of  the  expelled 
dynasty,  it  must  be  confessed,  are  as  ferocious 
as  they  have  ever  been  in  China  at  the  worst 
of  times  :  all  the  odious  punishments  abolished 
by  the  decree  of  April  1905  were  in  full  swing 
when  the  Manchus  took  over  their  predecessors' 
code,  and  have  remained  so  ;  that  is  to  say, 
slicing  to  pieces,   and   decapitating  the  dead ; 


A.D.  1000-1800]       THE   MANCHU  LAWS  337 

besides  responsibility  of  relatives  to  the  third 
generation  both  ways,  slavery  of  the  women  and 
young  boys,  and  so  on.  The  fourth  Emperor  in 
1740  issued  a  new  edition  of  the  Manchu  Code, 
alluding  in  his  preface  to  the  supposed  pictorial 
punishments  of  extreme  antiquity,  and  to  the 
first  real  code  of  960  B.C.,  mentioned  above  as 
translated  by  Dr.  Legge.  In  addition  to  justify- 
ing several  of  his  specific  decisions  in  Crown 
Cases  Reserved  by  referring  back  to  the  classics, 
the  Emperor  cites  two  cases  a  thousand  years 
old,  specially  named  in  the  Chinese  legal  records, 
in  order  to  amend  two  decisions  connected  Vv^ith 
the  justifiable  murder  of  a  father's  enemy  by 
that  father's  son.  These  two  cases  have  already 
been  alluded  to  under  the  T'ang  dynasty  (p.  333). 
The  same  principle  is  repeatedly  laid  down  by 
the  Manchu  Emperor  that  was  asserted  by  one 
of  the  Roman  Emperors,  namely,  that  "  though 
above  the  law,  they  considered  themselves  bound 
to  live  within  the  law." 

The  punishing  of  mandarins  ex  i^ost  jacto  for 
not  having  foreseen,  or  for  not  having  punished, 
a  crime  is  also  an  extension  of  the  responsibility 
theory  which  seem^s  to  have  grown  up  under  the 
Manchu  dynasty. 

Legal  activity  at  headquarters  in  China  seem^s 
to  have  fallen  off  with  the  advent  of  Europeans  : 
of  course  ordinary  routine  business  was  sub- 
mitted to  the  Throne  and  disposed  of  in  the 
usual  way  ;  and  of  course  special  legislation — 
as  for  instance  in  the  matter  of  opium — has  been 
sometimes  found  necessary.  Curiously  enough, 
the  falling  off  in  Manchu  jurisprudence  coincides 
in  date  with  the  translation  of  the  Manchu  Code 
by  Sir  George  Staunton,  v/ho  was  with  the  Lord 
Macartney  mission  of  1793.  At  present  our 
knowledge  of  Chinese  law,  as  presented  to  us 
in  its  most  recent  or  Manchu  form,  must  be  in  a 


538  LAW  [chap,  xvi 

large  measure  gathered  from  that  work,  which 
is  now  quite  out  of  print ;  but  it  must  be  men- 
tioned that  Staunton  only  translated  the  original 
kernel  or  ancient  "  statute  "  part  of  the  law, 
much  of  which  is  obsolete  ;  he  left  entirely  un- 
translated what  may  be  termed  the  judge-made 
or  case-law,  which  really  forms  the  most  impor- 
tant part  of  the  work.  The  close  corporation  of 
law  secretaries,  who  have  had  quite  a  monopoly 
of  the  law  clerkships  in  all  Chinese  courts,  were 
up  to  1911  the  real  persons  who  manipulated  the 
latest  decrees,  fashioned  the  judgments,  and  held 
a  balance  between  the  Emperor  and  his  judicial 
officers.  By  them  the  judge-made  law  was  really 
created  and  applied.  It  is  another  instance  of 
a  trade  worked  with  the  utmost  secrecy.  Even 
so  far  back  as  800  years  ago,  it  was  complained 
that    "  all   law   now   depended    on   the   clerks' 


memories." 


The  legal  records  of  the  purely  native  dynasty 
of  Ming,  which  occupied  the  throne  during  the 
reigns  of  our  Houses  of  Lancaster,  York,  Tudor, 
and  Stuart,  distinctly  state  that  all  jurisprudence 
to  their  date  is  based  upon  the  Nine  Chapters 
of  200  B.C.  (Han  dynasty),  as  subsequently 
expanded  and  codified  in  a.d.  630  (T'ang 
dynasty).  In  1373  this  Ming  dynasty  published 
its  code,  which  is  confessedly  based  on  that  of 
630,  and  has  exactly  the  same  twelve  divisions.^ 
The  Mongol  dynasty,  which  practically  began, 
so  far  as  China  was  concerned,  with  Kublai 
Khan  in  1260,  is  much  better  spoken  of  by  the 
historians  than  one  would  expect,  considering 
that  it  was  a  completely  foreign  government 
ruling  China  by  pure  force.  Kublai  is  spoken 
of  as  quite  a  benevolent  prince  from  a  juridical 
point  of  view,  and  even  his  less  capable  successors 
are  charged  rather  with  a  certain  slipshod  care- 
lessness  than   with   wanton   injustice.     Special 

1  p.  331. 


A.D.  900-1200]       UNDER  THE  TARTARS  839 

features  of  this  dynasty  were  the  abolition  of 
strangulation,  and  the  creation  of  legislative 
privileges  in  favour  of  Buddhists,  and  at  times 
of  other  priests.  Christian  included.  The  Chinese 
both  in  the  north  and  south  seem  to  have  had 
nearly  all  the  benefits  of  old  Chinese  law  ;  but 
the  Mongols,  mostly  of  course  military  men  or 
officials,  were  under  a  special  dispensation.  For 
three  centuries  previous  to  the  Mongol  conquest, 
China  was  under  two  concurrent  governments, 
that  of  first  the  Kitan  and  then  the  Niichen 
Tartars  in  the  north,  and  that  of  the  pure  Chinese 
dynasty  in  the  south  :  the  space  at  our  disposal 
will  not  permit  of  our  saying  more  than  this  : 
the  whole  legal  history  is  on  record  ;  progress 
can  be  traced  step  by  step  ;  and  no  considerable 
departure  was  at  any  time  made  from  the 
accepted  principles  handed  down  from  ancient 
times. 

On  the  whole  it  may  be  said,  continuing  our 
way  backwards,  that  the  southern  dynasty  was 
as  shifty  and  as  merciful  in  laws  as  it  was  literary 
and  unusually  weak  in  arms.  But  officials  were 
now  obliged  to  study  the  law,  and  scholars 
began  for  the  first  time  to  hold  judicial  posts. 
For  fifty  years  previous  to  this  north  and  south 
rule,  China  had  been  split  up  into  innumerable 
contending  local  dynasties,  and  it  need  hardly 
be  repeated  that  during  this  welter  of  anarchy  no 
startling  advance  was  made  :  yet  each  dynasty 
' — at  least  each  of  the  five  successive  central 
ones,  which  are  the  only  ones  usually  recog- 
nised by  standard  historians — naturally  took 
for  granted  the  possibility  that  it  might  endure 
for  ever  ;  and  thus  the  very  first  step  taken  by 
each  founder  was  to  issue  a  code  of  his  own, 
based,  of  course,  upon  the  old  codes  already 
described  {cf.  p.  326). 

Previous  to  that  the  great  T'ang  dynasty,  to 
24 


340  LAW  [chap.  XVI 

whiph  we  now  return,  ruled  the  whole  of  China 
with  great  glory  for  300  years,  these  300  years 
roughly  covering  the  period  of  our  Saxon  kings  : 
the  legal  history  is  very  minute,  and  the  special 
decisions  are  both  amusing  and  interesting  :  as 
already  stated,  some  of  them  are  cited  at  this 
day,  just  as  mediaeval  authorities  may  be  quoted 
in  England.  So  great  was  the  reputation  of  the 
T'ang  dynasty,  that  in  the  south  of  China  the 
Cantonese  even  now  invariably  describe  them- 
selves in  colloquial  speech  as  "  men  of  T'ang." 
On  the  other  hand  (c/.  p.  30),  the  general  name  for 
Chinese  in  the  north  is  "  men  of  Han,"  "  language 
or  writing  of  Han,"  and  so  on,  having  reference  to 
the  glorious  period  described  in  the  earlier  part 
of  this  chapter,  that  is  from  200  B.C.  to  a.d.  200, 
when  three  successive  branches  of  the  Han 
family  sat  upon  the  Chinese  throne.  During  the 
300  years  between  a.d.  280  and  580  China  was 
ruled  by  Tartars  in  the  north  and  native  houses 
in  the  south  :  there  is  plenty  to  say^  about  legal 
development  in  both,  but  this  is  not  the  place 
for  saying  it. 

To  sum  up,  the  two  great  law  dynasties  of 
China  are  the  Han  (200  B.C.  to  a.d.  200)  and  the 
T'ang  (600  to  900),  and  they  alone  of  all  purely 
Chinese  dynasties  {i.e.  not  counting  the  Mongols 
and  the  Manchus)  succeeded  in  extending 
Chinese  influence  to  Persia  and  India  :  hence  to 
this  day  the  pure  Chinese  are  proud  to  call  them- 
selves "  men  of  Han,"  and  "  men  of  T'ang." 

After  the  collapse  of  China  that  followed  upon 
the  Japanese  and  "Boxer"  wars,  the  question 
of  legal  reform  was  seriously  taken  up,  one  of 
the  chief  motives  being  to  imitate  Japanese 
success  and  get  rid  of  extraterritorial  jurisdic- 
tions. The  numerous  memorials  presented  to 
the  Emperor  by  the  most  distinguished  Manchu 
and   Chinese   statesmen    and   viceroys,    central 


A.D.  1905-16]    MR. '  NG  CHOY '  OF  HONGKONG   341 

or  in  the  provinces,  are  all  recorded  in  full,  and 
amply  prove  the  literary,  logical,  and  even 
legal  capacity  of  the  writers,  if  only  their  col- 
leagues intrusted  with  the  carrying  out  of  excel- 
lent laws  could  honestly  and  fairly  administer 
the  laws  so  well  understood  and  approved. 

The  first  point  vv^as  to  expose  clearly  the  differ- 
ence between  executive  and  legislative  functions, 
and  to  lay' stress  upon  the  unwisdom  of  continu- 
ing these  two  separate  functions  in  the  hands  of 
one  and  the  sam.e  man  or  group  of  men.  The 
second  reform  of  supreme  importance  was  to 
secure  the  independence  of  judges  and  to  estab- 
lish proper  courts  of  first  and  second  instance, 
appeal,  and  so  on,  both  in  the  capital  and  in  the 
provinces.  The  precise  legislative  and  executive 
rights  of  Parliament  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
Boards  and  Supreme  Law  Courts  on  the  other, 
were  shrewdly  discussed.  This  useful  work 
began  in  1905,  and  was  proceeding  apace  when 
the  Empress-Dowager  and  the  Emperor  died  in 
1908.  Meanwhile  Wu  T'ing-fang,  the  present 
(end  of  1916)  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign 
Affairs,  was  commissioned  to  draw  up  a  code. 
With  him  was  associated  one  Shen  Kia-pen,  a 
native  of  the  region  that  for  centuries  has  had 
a  monopoly  of  law-clerk  business,  and  very 
learned  in  native  law.  'Mr.  Wu"  himself  is  a 
British  barrister,  well  known  for  his  eminence 
as  Minister  to  the  United  States.  After  some 
elaboration  the  Code  was  drawn  up  largely  after 
Japanese  model,  and  from  a  European  point  of 
view  a  very  fair  code  it  was,  apart  from  the  fact 
that  it  got  rid  of  many  anachronisms.  But  it 
met  with  serious  viceregal  opposition  on  account 
of  the  novelty,  not  to  say  coarseness  of  its  style, 
its  use  of  ill-understood  semi-foreign  definitions, 
and  its  failure  to  recognise  the  ethical  principle  of 
Chinese  Law,  based  on  hiao,  or  the  natural  family 


342  LAW  [chap,  xvi 

rights,  duties,  and  responsibilities  as  defined  in 
the  Confucian  classics. 

Things  are  in  such  a  state  of  flux  under  the 
Republic  that  it  is  hardly  safe  to  say  what  law 
is  actually  followed  by  Chinese  judges ;  what  is 
the  juridical  capacity  of  those  judges ;  and  what 
is  the  ratio  decidendi.  So  far  as  I  can  judge, 
whatever  the  law  and  the  judge  may  theoreti- 
cally be,  justice  to  the  average  claimant  is  as 
far  off  as  in  past  times,  and  the  Chinese  courts 
are  as  unfitted  to  replace  the  extraterritorial 
consular  courts  as  ever  they  were. 


CHAPTER    XVII 

THE  LANGUAGE    AND    LITERATURE 

As  to  the  most  ancient  Chinese  writings,  within 
the  past  few  years  a  mass  of  entirely  new 
evidence  has  been  discovered  in  the  shape  of 
numerous  bone  inscriptions,  unearthed  chiefly 
in  the  true  "  Central  Kingdom  "  of  Old  China. 
The  meaning  of  these  bone  inscriptions  is  plain 
in  some  instances  ;  in  others  it  is  as  uncertain 
as  their  date ;  but,  whether  connected  with 
divination,  dynastic  successions,  or  fansily 
records,  it  seems  clear  that  they  exhibit  little 
or  nothing  in  the  direction  of  sustained  thought 
or  connected  history.  A  large  number  of  the 
rude  characters  can  be  easily  identified  with  the 
modern  forms  as  evolved  through  the  improve- 
ments of  centuries.  Tliose  which  have  not  been 
identified  manifestly  run  "  on  the  same  lines  " 
as  modern  characters  ;  but  in  the  absence  of 
inscriptions  on  old  bronzes  wherewith  to  compare 
them,  we  must  fain  leave  such  unsolved  for  the 
present.  However  that  may  be,  this  most 
ancient  period  of  about  a  hundred  pictographic 
signs,  gradually  reinforced  by  perhaps  four  hun- 
dred more  ideographic  characters,  endured  with- 
out much  local  variation  down  to  the  year 
827  B.C.  or  thereabout ;  and  really  we  do  not 
seem  to  possess  a  single  trustworthy  specimen 
of  even  the  most  primitive  Chinese  script  older 
than,  say,  another  827  years  before  that.     That 

313 


344    LANGUAGE  AND   LITERATURE    [chap,  xvii 

the  827  B.C.  script  reform  was  the  "articulate" 
expression  of  genuine  pubhc  opinion  budding 
for  the  first  time  seems  evident  from  the  fact 
that  the  interregnum  period  (841-828)  was 
characterised  as  Kung-ho,  or  "together  har- 
monising," a  term  freely  used  within  the  past 
five  years  to  denote  the  "  Republic."  During  the 
restoration  reign  of  827  to  782  B.C.,  a  court 
annalist  introduced  a  new  phonetic  system  of 
writing,  a  great  improvement  upon  the  sprawling 
old  hieroglyphs  and  pictographs,  which  were 
only  called  and  considered  as  "  names,"  with- 
out any  suggestion  of  grouping  similar  sounding 
names,  still  less  of  splitting  up  such  sounds 
into  initials  and  finals,  tones  and  rhymes.  His 
"  book "  or  vocabulary,  consisting  of  fifteen 
bamboo  or  wooden  "  chapters,"  cannot  have 
exceeded  about  one  thousand  characters  in  all, 
and  this  estimate  is  made  from  the  number  used 
in  the  actual  or  recorded  documents  that  have 
come  down  to  us  written  in  that  character,  many 
specimens  of  which  still  survive  in  the  shape  of 
vases,  drinking-vessels,  sacrificial  tripods,  bricks, 
tiles,  and  commemorative  bronze  bowls,  one 
especially  fine  instance  of  the  last-named  being 
at  this  moment  visible  to  the  public  in  the 
Victoria  and  Albert  Museum,  together  with 
translation,  history,  and  arguments  as  to  its 
genuineness. 

It  is  now  only  that  real  history,  accompanied 
by  effective  connected  thoughts  and  expressive  if 
limited  writing,  really  begins,  and  with  it  the 
period  of  material  progress  and  local  autonomy. 
Writing  was  a  laborious  and  clum.sy  art  even  in 
its  improved  and  tentatively  phonetic  form,  and 
"books"  were  rare  and  heavy  objects  made  up 
of  strips  strung  together  at  one  end  like  (and 
probably  the  indirect  origin  of)  bamboo  fans ; 
ordinary  business  was  conducted  by  one  or  more 


B.C.  800-200]      WRITING  DEVELOPMENTS        345 

wooden  or  bamboo  slips  like  our  tallies,  each 
containing  a  dozen  or  so  of  characters,  the  form 
of  which  was  apt  to  differ  slightly  in  each  semi- 
independent  state.  Confucius'  s  celebrated  Annals 
(c.  480  B.C.),  the  first  real  definite  history  ever 
attempted  in  China,  was  a  laconic  record  of 
events  in  his  own  state  so  far  as  they  led  him 
to  observations  on  and  relations  with  other 
states,  including  the  decaying  imperial  state  or 
extremely  limited  area  under  direct  imperial  rule. 
There  is  reason  to  believe  that  most  if  not  all 
the  other  states  kept  similar  annals,  and  portions 
of  the  same,  in  fact,  have  been  dug  up  from 
graves  at  various  comparatively  modern  times. 
Confucius  and  his  contemporaries  probably  did 
not  make  use  of  2,500  separate  characters  be- 
tween them.  Confucius' s  history,  which  covers 
a  retrospective  period  of  about  250  years,  is 
scarcely  literature,  though  the  three  largely 
amplified  commentaries  upon  it  (published 
several  centuries  later)  which  are  usually  meant 
when  people  speak  of  Confucius' s  celebrated 
Annals,  are  decidedly  interesting  and  readable. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  during  the  period 
820-220  B.C.  the  total  number  of  written  char- 
acters had  increased  from  1,000  to  over  3,000, 
for  3,300  were  at  the  latter  date  collected  in  a 
vocabulary  or  book.  Education  was  widely 
spread  ;  that  is,  the  limited  ruling  classes  had 
broadened  their  base,  cultivated  literary  trea- 
sures, used  to  consult  the  oracles,  a.nd  saw  to  it 
that  the  mercantile,  industrial,  and  agricultural 
commons  possessed  at  least  a  knowledge  of  written 
character  sufficient  for  the  ordinary  business 
purposes  of  Hfe,  including  the  learning  off  by 
heart  of  moral  maxims  and  principles  of  decency. 
If  no  current  everyday  specimens  have  come 
down  to  us  as  (only  in  very  recent  years)  in  the 
cases  of  the  Egyptian  papyri   and  Babylonian 


346    LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE    [chap,  xvn 

clay,  it  must  be  largely  because  wood  and  bamboo 
are  so  perishable  by  fire  and  rot. 

After  the  uniting  of  the  contending  feudatories 
and  imperial  appanage  into  one  centralised  state 
in  213  B.C.,  the  conqueror  and  his  ministers 
naturally  inclined  to  favour  the  use  of  their  own 
variety  of  script  when  it  became  a  question  of 
deciding  which  variant  had  best  claim  to  be 
the  standard.  Weights  and  measures,  cart- 
wheel axles,  and  political  ideas  were  all  thence- 
forward to  be  organised  and  standardised.  It 
is  highly  probable  that  (as  with  the  Egyptian 
demotic  writing)  scribes,  whose  routine  business 
led  them  to  deal  with  numerous  oracular,  ad- 
ministrative, or  mercantile  matters,  had  for  long 
quietly  and  empirically  indulged  in  a  kind  of 
short-hand  among  themselves  and  their  clerical 
colleagues  of  other  states,  which  process  would 
lead  naturally  to  a  general  simplification  of  the 
more  formal  and  laborious  mode  of  writing  dis- 
covered or  codified  in  827  B.C.,  in  the  elaboration 
of  which  simplification,  we  are  told,  two  of  the 
conqueror's  ministers  and  a  private  scholar  took 
independent  parts  :  shortly  after  that  an  anony- 
mous individual  unified  these  three  collections  in 
a  single  book  of  3,300,  as  just  stated.  In  his 
eagerness  to  begin  things  afresh,  this  imperial 
founder  proceeded  to  call  in  and  destroy  not 
only  so  much  of  the  ancient  literature  as  he 
could  lay  his  hands  on,  but  also  to  summon 
and  destroy  the  philosophers,  scholars,  and 
politicians  who  opposed  his  innovations  on  the, 
to  him,  most  irritating  ground  that  the  sages  of 
antiquity  had  taught  wiser  and  better  things. 
Thus  it  comes  about  that  even  those  portions  of 
genuine  old  classical  writings  rummaged  for  and 
patched  up  from  memory  several  generations 
after  the  tyrant's  death,  and  of  course  after  the 
total   collapse   of  his   short-lived   dynasty,    are 


B.C.  200-A.D.  200]    SIR  A.  STEIN  ONCE  MORE     347 

open  to  suspicion  as  to  their  genuineness  and 
accuracy,  as  few  persons  could  after  that  interval 
even  decipher,  let  alone  explain,  the  old  texts 
found,  whilst  a  large  number  of  the  827  B.C. 
characters  had  disappeared  for  ever.  If  this 
seem  incredible,  then  how  many  of  us  can  make 
out  even  Queen  Elizabeth's  writing  in  the  British 
Museum  ? 

The  Han  dynasty  in  its  western  and  eastern 
divisions  we  have  seen  covered  a  period  of  400 
years,  i.e.,  the  first  200  years  before  and  the 
second  200  years  after  the  beginning  of  our 
Christian  era' — exactly  the  same  periods  of  time 
as  those  covered  by  the  Hiung-nu  dominators, 
who  used  Chinese  just  as  (Caesar  tells  us)  the 
Gauls  and  Germans  used  Greek  script.  These 
400  years  were  exceedingly  active  in  a  military 
as  well  as  in  a  literary  sense.  The  first  diction- 
ary (as  distinct  from  mere  vocabularies)  was 
published  about  a.d.  220,  and  contained  over 
9,000  words.  Not  only  was  the  written  character 
further  developed  and  made  easier  to  write, 
but  the  hair  ink-brush  had  come  into  general 
use  instead  of  the  scratcher  or  style  and  the 
rough  bamboo  paint-brush ;  paper  was  invented ; 
various  special  guide-books  and  vocabularies 
were  made;  distant  military  posts  were  estab- 
lished, and  expresses  conveyed  despatches 
rapidly  from  one  end  of  the  empire  to  the  other — 
Dr.  Aurel  Stein  has  unearthed  hundreds  of  them 
from  the  dry  desert  sand,  and  the  original  speci- 
mens may  now  be  seen  in  the  British  Museum : 
the  dominions  of  China  were  enlarged  by  dis- 
covery ;  but  at  no  period  does  the  Chinese  literary 
taste  seem  to  have  been  in  the  remotest  degree 
affected  by  foreign  importations,  nor  have  the 
Chinese  writers  ever  given  the  smallest  hint  that 
the  form  of  their  script  owed  anything  in  the  way 
of  inception,  change,  or  improvement  to  examples 


348     LANGUAGE  AND   LITERATURE    [chap,  xvii 

or  suggestions  from  abroad  :  in  fact,  they  nev^r 
even  heard  of  any  rival  writing  system  or  con- 
ceived the  possible  existence  of  any  except  their 
own  until  they  were  brought  into  political  con- 
tact with  the  Indo-Scythians  (whence  India) 
and  the  Syrians  (whence  Rome).  Thus  any  sup- 
posed Babylonian  effect,  say,  in  600  B.C.  (even 
if  it  had  existed  at  all)  could  only  in  any  case 
be  looked  for  now  in  connection  with  the  forms 
that  have  largely  perished,  and  not  with  the  forms 
now  in  use.  The  Japanese  (as  admitted  in  the 
Times  by  Baron  Kikuchi)  had  no  letters  of  any 
kind  previous  to  the  seventh  century  a.d. 

But  as  to  the  specific  point  of  invention,  is 
there  any  real  necessity  for  persisting  in  or 
even  assuming  that  writing  was  in  remote  and 
"prehistoric"  times  the  exclusive  invention  of 
any  one  nation  or  tribe  ?  Nay,  further  ;  the 
attempts  to  prove  that  the  Chinese  derived  their 
primitive  pictographs  from  the  Akkadians  or 
Sumerians  of  Babylonia  seem  to  defeat  them- 
selves when  we  read  in  the  British  Museum 
guide-book  that  both  these  ruling  peoples  are 
"  believed  to  have  come  from  Central  Asia,  and 
to  have  belonged  to  the  Turanian  family  of 
nations  "  ;  i.e.,  of  necessity  either  to  the  Chinese, 
or  Tibetans,  or  the  Hiung-nu  and  Scythians  ; 
to  wit,  the  Turks.  What  scientific  ground  is 
there  for  assuming  that  any  nation  or  race  is 
older  than  any  other  ?  Every  existing  man  and 
woman  must  have  had  a  father  and  mother,  and 
they  also  must  have  had  parents  ;  and  so  on 
ad  infinitum,  or  at  any  rate  until  at  least  pleis- 
tocene and  even  pleiocene  times.  In  any  case 
it  seems  rash  to  assume  connection  or  borrow- 
ings on  the  ground  that  the  primitive  sounds 
uttered,  or  scratched  on  a  tree,  show  some 
similarity.  There  are  only  one  pair  of  legs 
and  one  pair  of  arms  to  clothe,  whether  we  elect 


B.C.  250,000]    A  MAN'S  A  MAN  FOR  A'  THAT    349 

for  petticoat,  clout,  or  breeches  ;  and  there  is, 
and  for,  say,  250,000  years  has  been,  only  one 
kind  of  throat  and  nose  to  speak  out  of,  whether, 
living  remote  from  each  other,  we  incline 
towards  clicks,  tones,  grunts,  sniffs,  labials, 
sonants,  nasals,  surds,  or  gutturals.  Not  to 
speak  of  the  Neanderthal  man,  the  Heidelberg 
jaw,  and  the  Ipswich  skeleton,  still  more  recent 
discoveries — and  in  point  of  time  we  must  not 
overlook  the  fossil  "  fabulous  "  dragons  found 
personally  by  a  genuine  British  Consul  in  China 
only  last  year  (1916), — the  most  recent  human 
"  finds "  distinctly  point  to  complete  man, 
brain-power  included,  even  in  pleiocene  times. 
History  is  nothing  but  events,  and  events  dis- 
appear for  ever  unless  they  are  recorded ; 
hence  for  untold  generations  man's  doings  are 
lost  in  oblivion,  and  leave  not  a  wrack  behind. 
Primitive  man  probably  made  one  of  his 
greatest  discoveries  when  he  began  to  conceive 
definite  numbers.  As  to  the  mere  act  of  think- 
ing, he  must  have  been,  for  he  still  is,  on  the 
same  plane  as  other  animals,  and  it  is  quite 
manifest  that  thinking  cannot  possibly  connote 
speech  of  necessity,  inasmuch  as  those  persons 
born  deaf  and  dumb  can  not  only  think,  but  read, 
and  "get  along"  in  matters  generally  as  well  as 
ordinary  folk.  Man's  next  step  would  probably 
be  the  development  of  speech,  which  is  merely 
a  "  short-distance "  record  of  our  thoughts. 
Primitive  man,  having  at  last  grasped  the  idea 
that  his  own  tree  hole  and  his  own  wife  were 
only  one  set  of  many  similar,  would  be  led  to 
''  record  "  this  and  other  simple  facts  more  per- 
manently with  his  nails,  with  shells,  or  with 
sticks,  on  his  wife's  skin,  or  on  a  tree  ;  if  there 
were  no  trees  handy,  he  might  make  a  shift  with 
other  suitable  material ;  for  instance,  clay ;  and  he 
would  advance  a  step  further  when  he  found  that 


350     LANGUAGE  AND   LITERATURE    [chap,  xvii 

the  sun,  later  fire,  made  the  clay  durable.  The 
Chinese  have  plenty  of  loess.  Possibly  because  it 
is  too  friable  to  convert  into  viscous  mud,  they 
never  seem  to  have  imagined  the  virtues  of  clay 
"  paper,"  though  numerous  very  hard-baked 
bricks  and  tiles,  probably  not  made  of  loess^ 
contain  valuable  ancient  "inscriptions"  of  a 
terse  and  limited  kind.  It  was  Chinese  ill-luck 
to  choose  the  most  perishable  of  materials — 
wood,  bamboos,  silk,  and  paper — and  (unless 
many  more  bone  or  tortoise-shell  inscriptions 
and  tomb  treasures  turn  up)  one  of  the  conse- 
quences now  is  that  we  shall  have  few  literary 
antiquities  in  China  except  in  stone,  brick,  or 
bronze.  But  that  circumstance  is  far  from 
proving  that  the  Chinese  owed  any  culture  to 
other  nations,  or  that  their  mental  capacity 
needed  foreign  stimulus. 

By  the  commencement  of  our  era  the  Chinese 
had  written  two  genuine  "  world  "  histories  as 
they  knew  the  world.  Take,  for  instance,  the 
chapters  on  the  Hiung-nu  in  both  these  histories, 
about  as  long  as  the  "  Caesar  "  and  "  Tacitus  " 
used  in  our  schools.  The  Chinese  descriptions 
of  the  Hiung-nu  are  in  general  grasp  marvellously 
like  the  Roman  descriptions  of  the  Gauls  and 
Germans.  The  language  and  flow  of  thought 
are  not  only  as  precise  and  intelligent,  but  each 
sentence  may  be  translated  almost  word  for 
word  into  good  Latin  of  similar  terseness  and 
grip ;  and  conversely,  the  Latin  will  go  quite  com- 
fortably into  Chinese  of  90  B.C.  and  90  a.d.  style. 
Although  the  first  dictionary  of  9,000  words  pub- 
lished about  A.D.  220  contains  fewer  than  half 
the  character»used  by  first-class  schoolmen  after 
the  perfect  and  refined  polish  of  1,000  years 
later,  and  only  one  quarter  or  one  fifth  of  the 
characters  given  in  the  imperial  dictionaries  of 
to-day,  the  clear  and  simple  style  of  90  B.C.  to 


B.C.  90-A.D.  90]      CHINESE  NOT  DIFFICULT      351 

A.D.  100  has  never  been  excelled,  and  it  is 
excellent  reading  even  to-day,  without  greater 
need  for  a  glossary  than  we  ourselves  require 
for,  say,  the  Shakespearean  plays.  The  Chinese 
have  never  shown  any  capacity  for  "  applied 
history,"  but  as  recorders  of  bare  facts  and 
describers  of  definite  events  they  are  unequalled 
for  trustworthiness.  Have  the  Egyptians  or 
the  Babylonians  ever  written  anything  that  one 
can  sit  down  to  read  by  the  hour  consecutively 
and  conscientiously,  and  enjoy  like  a  novel  ? 
The  thousands  of  clay  and  papyrus  documents 
indirectly  describing  conquests,  family  dealings, 
and  so  on  are  of  course  when  pieced  together 
intensely  interesting  to  our  curiosity.  But  are 
they  literature  ?  Is  there  any  "  style,"  or 
philosophic,  logical  thought  about  them  ? 
Above  all,  have  they  any  "  art  "  or  beauty  to 
the  imagination,  as  approached  through  the  eye  ? 
If  a  nation  can  struggle  during  a  total  period  of 
500  years  out  of  its  bald  annals  scratched  on 
laconic  slips,  create  an  argumentative  philo- 
sophy worth  destroying,  repair  that  destruction, 
rise  "  like  a  phoenix  from  the  ashes,"  and  achieve 
the  highest  degree  of  artistic  calligraphic  and 
literary  taste,  charming  to  the  eye,  unfettered 
by  "  grammar,"  and  good  for  any  spoken  lan- 
guage, what  need  is  there  to  charge  upon  its 
mental  capacity  an  imaginary  debt  to  the 
Egyptians  and  Babylonians  ? 


From  a  general  point  of  view  no  language 
can  be  postulated  more  difficult  than  another, 
for  every  language  is  the  easiest  expression  by 
the  native  speaker  thereof  of  his  sentiments  ; 
specifically,  Chinese  is  provably  as  easy  to  speak 
as  English,  for  any  English  child  born  in  China, 
and  given  a  free  hand  to  grow  up  amongst  native 


352    LANGUAGE  AND   LITERATURE    [chap,  xvii 

servants  and  friends,  speaks  the  local  dialect 
with  absolute  perfection  along  with  his  mother's 
English.  The  difficulty  of  a  language  cannot 
therefore  be  inherent,  but  must  lie  in  the  differ- 
ence between  the  language  already  spoken  and 
that  which  is  to  be  learnt ;  it  is  only  the  differ- 
ence between  braying  and  neighing  in  another 
degree,  the  aims  being  identical.  Chinese,  ac- 
cordingly, is  so  different  from  English,  that  it 
becomes  increasingly  difficult  in  the  ratio  of 
the  learner's  established  custom  :  hence — given 
equal  natural  intelligence — a  youth  of  18  in- 
variably progresses  more  rapidly  than  an  adult 
of  40. 

These  sententiosities  apart,  however,  Chinese 
is,  by  reason  of  its  seemingly  grotesque  differ- 
ences, apparently  very  hard  to  learn  at  all ; 
and,  by  reason  of  its  innumerable  and  confusing 
dialects,  really  very  hard  to  learn  correctly, 
unless  you  study  it  in  a  place  where  everybody 
speaks  in  the  same  way  ;  for  in  China,  except 
in  one's  own  place,  no  one  does  speak  the  same 
way ;  and  in  Peking,  where  officials  from  every 
city  and  village  in  China  do  congregate,  no  one 
but  a  born  native  speaks  absolutely  *'  right." 
It  is  scarcely  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  amongst 
a  group  of  native  officials  forming  a  government 
committee  of  any  mixed-interests  kind,  no  one 
can  be  guaranteed  clear  in  his  expositions  unless 
he  "  yells  at  "  you,  and  you  at  him,  occasionally  ; 
or  unless  he  indulges  in  pi-Van  (  =  pencil  chat), 
i.e.  jotting  down,  or  merely  indicating  by  flour- 
ishes of  his  forefinger,  the  written  character 
intended  to  express  the  particular  sound  he  is 
*'  mouthing,"  for  the  special  benefit  of  his  col- 
league's provincial  ear.  In  Manchu  times  it 
was  execrably  bad  form  to  misunderstand  what 
the  Emperor — and  still  more  the  peppery  old 
Dowager — was  talking  about ;  and  as  the  racy 


A.D.  1900]  VOWEL    DISTINCTIONS  353 

brogue  of  Peking  is  precisely  the  same  in  a  mule- 
cabman's  mouth  and  in  the  mouth  of  the  "  all- 
highest,"  most  local  men  admitted  to  audience 
were  glad  to  slur  over  the  formal  conversation 
prescribed  and  shuffle  out  as  quickly  as  possible 
from  the  imperial  presence  :  some  viceroys  were 
so  incapable  of  disguising  their  broad  "  Doric  " 
that  they  received  a  pretty  broad  hint  to  give  as 
much  of  their  room  and  as  little  of  their  company 
at  the  metropolis  as  rigid  rule  admitted  of. 

The  moral  of  all  this  is  that  a  beginner  must 
choose  a  dialect  and  stick  to  it.  The  reason  is 
this  :  as  will  shortly  be  shown,  all  dialects  are 
regular ;  that  is  to  say,  no  matter  how  unlike 
they  may  be,  the  changes  in  pronunciation  follow 
definite  fixed  rules :  hence  instinct  teaches 
every  native  to  make  mental  allowances  for 
speakers  of  other  dialects,  and  it  is  obvious  that 
these  mental  allowances  are  more  easily  made 
when  the  speaker  is  "in  order  "  than  when  he 
speaks  imperfectly.  For  instance,  when  a  Scots- 
man says  sair  taes  for  "  sore  toes,"  or  when  an 
Irishman  talks  about  Tay  Pay  O'Connor  drink- 
ing a  cup  of  tay  at  the  say  side,  even  the  dullest 
English  yokel  soon  learns  instinctively  that 
certain  classes  of  o  and  i  (or  ee)  are  changed  to 
ei  (or  ay)  in  a  Scotchman's  or  Irishman's  mouth 
respectively  ;  but  if  Scotch  changes  were  irregu- 
larly mixed  with  Irish  changes,  neither  the 
Scotsman  nor  the  Irisliman  would  be  so  well 
understood  by  the  yokel  in  question. 

Another  point.  All  the  Chinese  dialects,  and 
all  the  "  tonic "  languages  akin  to  Chinese 
(Annamese,  Miao,  Yao,  Lolo,  Shan,  etc.)  are 
monosyllabic,  i.e.  no  matter  what  single  word, 
whether  noun,  verb,  adjective,  conjunction,  or 
what  not,  that  word  is  enunciated  in  one  syllable ; 
the  only  apparent  qualification  of  this  statement 
being  that  the  vowel  of  many  such  syllables  is 


354    LANGUAGE  AND   LITERATURE    [chap,  xvii 

often  what  may  be  called  an  "  inverted  diph- 
thong "  ;  thus  chiang  and  chang,  chiu  and  chu, 
though  monosyllables,  contain  vowels  of  different 
degrees  of  purity  or  simplicity  ;  like  the  word 
"  gardener,"  by  a  few  old-fashioned  people  still 
pronounced  "  gyardner,"  or  like  the  faint  differ- 
ence between  the  vowels  in  chew  and  choose 
made  by  some  clear  speakers.  But,  after  all, 
this  monosyllabic  theory  of  the  Chinese  lan- 
guages must  not  be  overweighted.  All  lan- 
guages, even  the  most  sesquipedalian,  are  mono- 
syllabic, in  the  sense  that  all  polysyllables  must 
consist  of  single  syllables  ;  and  all  inflections, 
agglutinative  particles,  and  so  on,  are  either  pure 
unmodified  monosyllables  with  a  definite  mean- 
ing, or  impure  monosyllables  the  original  mean- 
ing of  which  it  is  difficult  to  trace  back.  Inde- 
pendence and  Unabhdngigkeit  are  both  exactly 
the  same  word  :  if,  like  the  Chinese,  we  had 
always  kept  our  European  syllables  separate 
and  uncorrupted,  we  should  have  been  equally 
comprehensible  if  we  had  said  "  Not  from  hang 
like  way,"  or,  as  we  still  say,  "  not  hang  on  to 
others,"  or  "  to  one's  mother's  apron  strings." 
The  important  difference  is  that  the  Chinese  in 
all  their  parts  of  speech,  whether  primary  or 
auxiliary  in  meaning,  have  only  had  their  own 
single  language  to  deal  with,  whereas  we  in 
England  have  borrowed  from  so  many  sources 
that  most  of  us  are  ignorant  of  what  our  own 
monosyllables  mean.  German  occupies  a  mid- 
way position  between  English  and  Chinese  :  it 
may  be  said  aphoristically,  "  Every  Chinaman 
knows  analytically  exactly  what  he  is  saying ; 
every  German  knows  pretty  well  what  he  is 
saying  ;  few  Englishmen  have  any  exact  analyti- 
cal idea  of  what  they  say."  What  with  Greek, 
Latin,  and  other  borrowings,  we  in  England  have 
frequently  lost  all  trace  of  our  component  parts. 


A.D.  1900]  WHAT    IS    GRAMMAR  ?  355 

Every  one  talks  of  "  insufficient  circumstances," 
and  knows  generally  what  this  means,  but  how 
many  people  can  split  these  words  up  and  define 
why  each  syllable  has  its  partial  or  contributes 
to  the  total  effect  ?  This  instinctive  wholesome 
feeling  every  Chinese  has,  no  matter  what  dialect 
he  speaks,  and  thus  there  are  no  Mrs.  Malaprops 
in  China,  and  no  hawkers  of  "  haspidesterers  "  or 
"  enuncrancies  "  for  the  "  drorin'  "  room  flower- 
pots. The  Dowager-Empress  could  enjoy  her 
street  chaff,  on  precisely  equal  dialectic  terms, 
with  any  old  peasant  crony  who  brought  her 
a  bowl  of  rice  to  the  countryside  ;  and  it  is 
recorded  that  she  did. 

There  is  no  grammar  in  Chinese  :  this  is  the 
next  point  to  be  examined.  How  many  of  us 
can  explain  the  word  "  grammar  "  which  we 
use  so  confidently  :  gramma  means  "  a  word  " 
or  "  a  written  sign,"  and  "  grammar"  by  exten- 
sion "  the  study  of  forms  of  speech  "  ;  but  the 
idea  conveyed  to  the  popular  mind  is  a  vague 
collection  of  half-understood  terms,  such  as 
nouns,  verbs,  adjectives,  tenses,  cases,  moods, 
and  so  on.  Every  Chinese  word,  written  or 
spoken,  is  absolutely  unchangeable  ;  it  cannot 
be  inflected,  agglutinated,  or  "  parsed  "  in  any 
way.  Which  of  us  can  explain  the  word 
"  parse  "  ?  The  mere  utterance  of  the  word  is 
all  the  parsing,  partitioning,  or  defining  a  Chinese 
requires,  just  as  we  have  shown  that  the  most 
ancient  written  signs  were  "  names,"  and  there 
was  an  end  of  it.  The  Chinese  word  for  a 
written  gramma  (ideograph)  is  no  longer  ming 
or  "  name,"  but  a  word  only  2,000  years  old 
as  used  in  that  sense  called  tsz,  and  a  "  not- 
recognize-i52  "  means  "  an  ignoramus."  Wen-li 
(grammar)  means  the  "  orderly  arrangement"  of 
tsz,  and  an  official  statement  by  the  Board  of 
Education  roundly  asserted  quite  recently  that 

25 


356    LANGUAGE  AND   LITERATURE    [chap,  xvii 

less  than  1  per  cent,  of  the  whole  Chinese  race 
(seven  per  mille)  were  acquainted  with  literature. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  much  larger  proportion  of 
male  Chinese  have  for   many  centuries   had   a 
casual  acquaintance  with  the  tsz  sufficient  to 
carry  them  through  their  daily  business,  women 
in  most  parts  having  been,  until  a  few  years  ago, 
entirely  ignorant;  but  this  slender  male  know- 
ledge was  before  the  introduction  of  newspapers 
and  advertising  a  generation  ago  :  now  both  sexes 
are  rapidly  advancing,  and  the  dullest  minds  are 
stimulated  by  curiosity  as  to  what  is  going  on  in 
the  outer  world.     But  all  Chinese,  illiterate  or 
learned,  have  as  much  grammar  as  we  have  ; 
that  is  to  say,  they  arrange  the  order  of  their 
words  by  hereditary  instinct  and  daily  practice 
in  such  a  way  that  they  extract  the  same  effec- 
tive results  as  though  they  had  all  our  moods, 
tenses,  declensions,  and  cases.     The  main  differ- 
ence between  vulgar  speech  and  literary  elegance 
is  that  the  latter  aims  at  eschewing  tautology, 
repetitions,   expletives,   coarseness,   and  vague- 
ness ;    the  style  tends  to  the  telegraphic  in  its 
economy.     The   most  learned   Chinese  literatus 
cannot  in  the  least  explain  how  he  arrives  at 
"style";    yet  the  official,  historical,  narrative, 
and  other  styles  are  all  recognised  and  mentally 
fixed,  subject  of  course  to  the  qualification  that 
real  masters  of  style  attract  special  attention, 
as  with  ourselves  :   official  dispatch  writers  form 
a  sort  of  semi-secret  guild. 

The  fact  that  Chinese  written  characters  or 
hieroglyphs  are  final  and  unchangeable  cannot 
possibly  have  anything  to  do  with  the  fact  that 
the  spoken  language  is  (as  above  qualified)  mono- 
syllabic and  uninflected,  for  men  spoke  and 
formed  their  language  for  the  current  purposes 
of  life  long  before  they  ever  thought  of  even 
elementary    writing ;     moreover,    even    within 


B.C.  200C-A.D.  1900]     WHAT'S  IN  A  NAME  ?         857 

historical  memory,  Chinese  writing  was  so 
laborious  and  clumsy  an  art,  writing  materials 
were  so  expensive  and  unwieldy,  that  only  an 
infinitesimal  number  of  scholars  in  a  very  few 
capital  cities  could  have  had  the  independent 
means  to  study  critically.  In  the  same  way  it  must 
be  remembered  that  Chinamen  spoke  long  before 
the  idea  of  "grammar"  was  conceived  in  other 
lands ;  the  peculiarity  of  Chinese  is  that  the 
people,  literate  or  illiterate,  have  continued  to 
speak  as  they  have  always  spoken,  without  the 
faintest  idea  of  "  good  grammar "  or  "  bad 
grammar  "  having  entered  a  single  mind,  and 
this  over  a  period  of  some  4,000  years.  Speech  has 
no  formal  recognition  at  all,  except  as  an  ordinary 
function  of  life,  like  toddling,  walking,  suckling, 
weaning,  eating,  belching,  or  drinking.  A  school- 
master may  chide  a  boy  for  rude  acts  and  ex- 
pressions, just  as  Don  Quixote  warned  Sancho 
about  erutar  and  regoldar ;  but  he  never  dreams 
of  correcting  his  "  grammar  "  ;  nor  are  there  any 
books  on  grammar.  With  us  the  omission  or 
insertion  of  an  /?,  a  "you  was^'  instead  of  werCf 
"  kep "  instead  of  "  kept,"  srimp  instead  of 
shrimp,  may  affect  a  young  man's  whole  career 
in  life,  because,  in  addition  to  a  more  or  less 
artificial  grammar,  we  have  evolved  a  more  or 
less  "  caste  "  pronunciation,  which  is  not  that 
of  the  pi'ojanum  vulgus.  But  plants  grew  before 
botany  was  invented,  with  its  artificial  classifi- 
cations and  impossible  Greek  or  Latin  words, 
invented  to  split  up  leaves,  anthers,  and  other 
component  parts  into  innumerable  imaginary 
departments,  futile  to  all  but  specialists  ;  and 
plants  will  continue  to  grow  in  omne  aevum, 
subject  only  to  the  fcAv  insignificant  graftings 
or  unnatural  modifications  that  science  may 
occasionally  supply.  So  language  grew  through 
untold  generations  of  gradual  development  before 


358     LANGUAGE  AND   LITERATURE    [chap,  xvii 

grammar   was    invented   to   harness   it   to   the 
restraint    of    fancy    rules.      Even    in    Europe, 
dialects  still  run  wild,  and  "  correct  "  speech  is 
only  ancillary  to  local  brogues,  whereas  in  China 
no    one    has    ever   dreamt    of   regulating   mere 
speech,  however  finically  rules  for  poetry  and 
essay- writing     may     have     developed.      Every 
Chinese  official  speaks  or  tries  to  speak  "  man- 
darin "  of  some  kind  ;   not  necessarily  Pekingese 
(the  fashionable  language  for  the  last  thousand 
years,  and,  it  seemiS,  still  the  only  one  in  which 
really    good    colloquial    novels    are    published), 
but  some  form  of  that  vast  series  of  correlated 
brogues  current  over  the  whole  of  China,  Man- 
churia, and  (if  Chinese  be  spoken  at  all)  Mon- 
golia,   Corea,    and   Tibet,    which   pass   by   that 
unsatisfactory  generic  name.     But  no  Cantonese 
or  coast-Chinese  of  any  kind  holding  an  official 
position    under    the    Manchu    dynasty    would 
ever  speak  his  native  "non-mandarin"  brogue 
officially    in    public ;    interpreters   were    always 
used  in  courts  of  law,  and  it  was  no  uncommon 
sight  to  witness,  say,   a  Cantonese  judge,  who 
himself   spoke    imperfect    "mandarin,"    having 
the   evidence   of  a   Cantonese    prisoner   (which 
he  meanwhile  understood  perfectly)  interpreted 
to  him  in  another  form  of  "mandarin"  equally 
imperfect.      This,    of    course,    is    only    an    ex- 
aggerated or  extreme  form  of  the  general  fact 
already  stated — ^that  mere  speech  is  a  private 
and  personal  affair  not  to  be  seriously  taken  ; 
whilst  litera  scripta  manet,  whatever  dialect  be 
used ;     for    composition    in     no    matter    what 
form,    legal,   official,   narrative,   essay,   poetical, 
historical,    or   what    not,    is    always    resolvable 
into   perfectly   regular    local    elements,    though 
six  men  may  (as  they  do)  pronounce  one  iden- 
tical written  word  as  chi,   cup,   cake,  kip,   dji, 
kih,  and  so  on. 


A.D.  1917]     DULL   ONES,   TAK^   COURAGE!     359 

It  may  strike  Europeans  as  singular  that  the 
total  number  of  syllables  for  40,000  written 
characters  ranges  between  350  to  800.  But  this 
seemingly  alarming  statement  is  subject  to 
qualifications  which  reduce  it  to  comparative 
impotence.  In  the  first  place  12,000  characters 
easily  embrace  the  whole  gamut  of  reasonable 
literature,  and  probably  of  the  three  or  four 
million  men  in  China  officially  dubbed  "  literate," 
not  one  million  can  be  depended  on  to  pronounce 
clearly  upon  more  than  8,000  or  9,000.  Three- 
fourths  of  the  characters  are  waste  ;  duplicates 
or  "  cranks "  of  this  or  that  kind.  A  good 
average  knowledge,  sufficient  for  supervising 
correspondence,  reading  proclamations  (not  too 
exactly),  glancing  over  the  newspapers  and 
official  gazettes,  dealing  with  commercial  docu- 
ments, etc.,  would  be  4,000  or  5,000.  Hence  it 
follows  that  no  character  beyond  this  last 
number  can  possibly  have  a  local  pronunciation 
that  can  be  depended  upon  ;  that  is  to  say,  if  a 
person,  Chinese  or  other,  does  not  know  it  from 
personal  experience,  he  must  accept  the  native 
dictionary  pronunciation;  and  this  itself  is 
imperfect,  because  the  native  dictionaries,  in 
arranging  their  initials  and  finals,  have  only 
been  able  (1)  to  go  back  to  ancient  dicta,  or  (2) 
to  accept  the  personal  pronouncements  of  indi- 
viduals (who  may  be  provincials)  in  court 
circles.  To  put  it  in  another  way,  the  ordinary 
business  Chinese  of  standing  only  makes  use 
during  life  of  4,000  or  5,000  words  in  the  whole 
of  his  conversation  and  business,  and  can  only 
fit  that  conversation  with  the  same  number  of 
signs.  Hence  the  European  student  need  not 
burden  his  memory  with  more  (unless  he  wish 
to  be  a  specialist)  ;  and  if  he  stumble  across 
either  strange  words  or  strange  characters  he 
must  look  them  up  ;    after  which  done,  he  is  as 


360    LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE    [chap,  xvii 

good  an  authority  as  the  average  Chinese,  who 
must  do  the  same  thing. 

As  to  the  number  of  syllables  in  a  monosylla- 
bic language  not  exceeding  350 — indeed  the 
Hankow  dialect  has  only  320 — it  is  doubtful 
if  even  in  polysyllabic  English  our  separate 
monosyllables  would  reach  1,000.  The  whole 
Japanese  language  from  first  to  last,  including 
Chinese  importations,  is  expressed  by  fifty 
separate  monosyllables  ;  but  then  that  language 
is  highly  polysyllabic,  and  there  are  many  clip- 
pings, prolongations,  and  "  thickenings  " — such 
as  in  Welsh  d  for  t  (Llandudno  and  St.  Tudno) — 
to  help  it  out.  In  China  the  same  helping  out 
effect  is  partly  gained  by  tones,  which  practi- 
cally double,  treble,  or  even  quadruple  the 
distinctions,  according  to  refinement  of  dialect : 
yet,  with  all  that,  one  of  the  real  difficulties  of 
Chinese — especially  the  "  mandarin  "  dialects — 
to  foreign  students,  even  those  with  a  good  ear 
for  tones,  is,  it  must  be  confessed,  the  want  oi 
variety  in  word-sounds,  which  difficulty  is  of 
course  accentuated  in  the  case  of  persons — and 
they  are  many — who  cannot  for  the  life  of  them 
"  get  into  "  the  tones  at  all.  The  reason  why 
some  dialects  have  only  400  whilst  others  have 
800  sounds  is  that  either  initials  or  finals  or 
both  have  been  merged  in  the  cases  of  the 
"mandarin"  group — i.e.  in  the  current  corre- 
lated brogues  of  nine-tenths  of  interior  China — 
whilst  they  have  been  preserved' — sometimes 
most  carefully' — in  the  ignored  dialects  of  the 
coast.  It  is  easily  provable,  from  close  examina- 
tion of  the  present  form  of  Corean,  Japanese, 
and  Annamese  words  taken  over  from  Chinese 
(from  A.D.  1  till,  say,  a.d.  1300),  that  the 
Cantonese  dialect,  which  is  far  and  a  long  way 
the  highest  in  develojDment,  corresponds  most 
closely  with  the  theoretical  or  dictionary  form  of 


A.D.  1917]      A    "TIP"    FOR    STUDENTS  361 

ancient  times,  still  rigidly  adhered  to  for  poetical 
purposes,    though    no    Chinaman    can    explain 
why.     This  is  the  more  remarkable  in  that  the 
Cantonese  people  are  not  of  pure  "  Old  China  " 
stock;  and  the  explanation  probably  is  that,  as 
the  Tartars  gradually  possessed  themselves   of 
North  China  (as  expounded  in  the  chapter  on 
history),  the  pure  Chinese  colonised  the  south 
in  huge  numbers  by  way  of  the  lakes,  and  took 
their  speech  with  them.     On  the   other   hand 
the  now  existing  "  mandarin  "  dialects  of  Old 
China,  West  China,   and  the  foreign  provinces 
above  enumerated,  evidently  represent  corrupt 
forms  as  debased  by  successive  inroads  by  Tartar 
rulers,  who  (just   as  the  Coreans  and  Japanese 
have  done  with  adopted  Chinese  words)  would 
tend   to   make   a   clean   sweep   of  tones,   surds, 
sonants,  aspirates,  and  other  refinements  strange 
to  their  own  guttural  and  agglutinative  speech. 
The  case   of  the   Cantonese  is   well  illustrated 
by  a  parallel  with  Quebec  (and  French  Canada 
generally) ;   there  sixteenth  or  seventeenth-cen- 
tury French  is  spoken,  which  I  personally  found 
barely  intelligible.     The  case  of  "mandarin"  is 
well  illustrated  by  a  parallel  with  France  itself, 
where  Northmen  have  played  such  havoc  with 
Latin  that   a  debased   but  fashionable  "  man- 
darin "  form  has  thrust  the  purer  Spanish,  Portu- 
guese, Italian,  Romance,  and  Rumanian  into  the 
political  background.     To  illustrate  the  extent  of 
"  mandarin  "  corruption  :  what  ought  to  be  ki,  tsi, 
kik,  kip,  kit,  tsik,  tsip,  tsit,  are  all  debased  into  one 
uniform  "  mandarin  "  form  chi ;  thus  a  Cantonese 
— who,  moreover,  subdivides  his  four  theoretical 
tones  into  about  twenty  colloquial  tones — has 
eight    chances    at    guessing    right   against   one 
"  mandarin"  chance  in  this  particular  instance; 
in  fact,  he  has  8  x  5,  or  forty  chances. 

The   whole   question    of    comparative    tones. 


362    LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE    [chap,  xvii 

aspirates,   sonants,  surds,  etc.,   is,  however,  one 
that    no    casual    student    can    be    expected    to 
tolerate  for  a  moment.     Sanskrit  purists  in  the 
shape  of  Buddhist  priests  first  explained  it  to 
the  Chinese,  or  tried  to  do  so.     A  final  piece  of 
practical  advice  may,  however,  perhaps  here  be 
hazarded  :■ — If  you  want   to   learn  Chinese,   no 
matter  what  dialect,  get  a  native  who  does  not 
understand  a  word  of  any  foreign  language,  and 
is  guaranteed  to  be  a  safe   moderate  scholar, 
speaking  his  own  dialect  only.      Do  not  bother 
yourself  with  grammar,  but  start  off  by  pointing 
to  something,  gradually  working  your  way  up 
to  such  words  as  "  give,"    "  me,"  the  numerals, 
the  negatives,  the  way  to  say  "is  "  and  "  has  " 
(practically  the   sole  real    "verb"    or  verbs   in 
existence).     Make   the   man   read ;     follow   his 
sounds,  take  notes,  keep  him  in  good  humour 
by  letting  him  smoke  and  drink  tea  ;  and,  having 
thus  got  the  thin  end  of  the  wedge  in,  go  ahead 
in  the  way  most  agreeable  to  yourself,  repeating 
all  doubtful   points  the  next  lesson,  and  going 
on   repeating   day   by   day   till  you   are   clear. 
With  regard  to  reading  and  writing,  take  notes 
of  the  sounds  as  they  seem  to  you,  and  postpone 
dictionary  work,  or  comparison  with  other  men's 
views,  till  you  feel  you  are  on  your  own  solid 
ground.     Do  not  trouble  to  learn  the  radicals 
{i.e.  the  214  conventional,  m.ostly  obsolete,  char- 
acters used  in  forming  parts   of  hieroglyphs), 
but  get  a  Chinese  brush,  Chinese  ink,  and  Chinese 
slab  ;   watch  how  the  teacher  rubs  the  ink,  holds 
the  brush,  and  in  what  order  of  strokes  he  writes 
each   word.     Imitate   him,    always   keeping  up 
Chinese    conversation    withal.     The    main    rule 
is  this  :    (1)  No  word  should  be  allowed  to  pass 
for  an  instant  unless  you  can  utter  its  tone  and 
sound,  (2)  recognise  it  on  paper,  and  (3)  write  it 
as  the  teacher  writes  it. 


A.D.  1917]  BIZARRE    DIALECTS  863 

The  above  remarks  chiefly  concern  Pekingese, 
the  "  mandarin  "  dialect  most  usually  studied, 
not  only  because  it  is  the  fashionable  court 
brogue,  but  because  it  is  (or  was  until  quite 
recently)  the  only  one  provided  with  adequate 
machinery  in  the  way  of  handbooks,  etc.,  for 
foreigners :  etymologically  it  is  a  decidedly  cor- 
rupted dialect.  It  may  in  a  general  way  be 
said  that  no  one  except  missionaries  ever  seri- 
ously engages  a  purely  local  dialect  :  of  course 
there  are  very  occasional  exceptions,  and  Can- 
tonese is  not  rarely  taken  up  by  officials  and 
other  non-missionaries  on  account  of  the  practical 
needs  of  Hong  Kong ;  and  there  are  excellent 
Canton  dictionaries,  besides  handbooks.  The 
dialects  of  Amoy  and  Ningpo  seem  to  be  picked 
up  by  local  smatterers^ — apart  from  missionaries 
• — with  unusual  facility,  perhaps  because  both 
are  "  unlit erary,"  and  full  of  local  locutions 
which  cannot  be  written  with  recognised  standard 
tsz;  both  are  provided  with  good  dictionaries. 
Such  strange  "abortions"  as  the  dialects  of 
Foochow  and  Wenchow  are  never  studied  ex- 
cept under  force  majeure;  yet  both  have  been 
thoroughly  dissected  and  explained  in  published 
papers. 

Few  practical  students  who  may  take  up 
Chinese,  whether  Pekingese,  "  southern  man- 
darin," "  western  mandarin,"  or  any  of  the 
coast  dialects,  will  care  or  have  time  for  com- 
parative or  etymological  studies.  If  they 
should  wander  into  these  pleasant  pastures, 
they  will  find  that  China  follows  out  nearly  all 
the  "  laws  "  of  change  we  are  accustomed  to  in 
Europe  ;  such,  for  instance,  as  the  passage  from 
surd  to  aspirate,  from  sonant  to  aspirated  surd, 
from  one  class  of  nasal  to  another,  from  faint 
nasal  to  pure  consonant,  from  o  to  ue  (as  in 
Spanish),  from  partial  omission  of  final  conson- 


864   LANGUAGE  AND   LITERATURE    [chap,  xvii 

ants  to  entire  omission  with  occasional  re- 
suscitation (as  in  French),  etc.  In  short,  there 
is  scarcely  any  bizarre  change  to  be  found  in 
Europe  that  cannot  be  closely  paralleled  in 
Chinese  ;  even  the  pure  Welsh  II  is  extensively 
found  in  one  of  the  Cantonese  group,  where  it 
takes  the  place  of  s.  Through  all  this  maze  it 
is  comparatively  easy  to  grope  one's  way  for 
practical  purposes  if  the  student  masters  and 
adheres  to  one  definite  dialect,  never  passing  to 
a  second  unless  he  feels  that  he  can  do  so  with- 
out wrecking  the  first ;  for  even  Chinese  them- 
selves can  very  rarely  speak  two  dialects  with 
sufficient  purity  in  each  case  to  pass  muster  to  a 
native  speaker  as  a  native  speaker  of  either ;  and 
it  may  be  here  repeated  that  speech  in  China 
takes  quite  a  back  seat,  and  (except  between 
natives  of  the  same  tract)  it  is  scarcely  an  ex- 
aggeration to  say  that  no  two  men  talk  alike :  one 
might  even  go  farther,  and  say  that  few  persons 
quite  understand  a  complicated  conversation 
without  calling  for  repetitions  and  explanations; 
these,  indeed,  form  the  salt  that  gives  zest  to  an 
interchange  of  ideas,  just  as  with  us  the  broad 
racy  talk  of  a  native  of  Perth  entertains  and 
amuses  the  educated  Englishman,  and  vice  versa. 


CHAPTER    XVIII 

THE    RISE    OF   THE    CHINESE    REPUBLIC 

A  RUSH  of  very  detailed  books  upon  this  subject 
burst  upon  the  world  four  or  five  years  ago,  but 
the  present  account  reviews  the  whole  question 
in  condensed  proportions,  under  the  light  of 
official  Chinese  documents  published  from  day 
to  day,  and  from  the  standpoint  of  one  who  was 
actually  present  as  events  progressed  in  most  of 
the  countries  concerned.  The  "  Awakening  of 
China"  began  when  Turkestan  was  reconquered, 
and  the  Marquess  Tseng  (who  subsequently 
wrote  a  paper  thus  entitled)  succeeded  in  negotia- 
ting a  favourable  treaty  with  Russia.  At  the 
same  time  Li  Hung-chang,  then  Viceroy  at 
Tientsin,  managing  also  external  relations  gener- 
ally, thought  it  good  policy  to  encourage  treaties 
between  foreign  powers  and  Corea  so  as  to 
thwart  designs  upon  that  vassal  state's  virtual 
independence. 

Meanwhile  French  activity  in  Indo-China 
(1884)  led  up  to  the  loss  of  China's  first  war 
fleet  and  of  Tonquin,  whilst  the  Pendjeh  in- 
cident in  Affghanistan  had  the  indirect  effect 
of  causing  a  strained  situation  in  connection 
with  the  British  occupation  of  Port  Hamilton 
off  Corea.  The  death  of  Sir  Harry  Parkes  at 
this  juncture  (1885)  deprived  us  of  our  one 
"push  and  go"  man  who  understood  the  situa- 
tion.    China  made  efforts  to  create  a  new  navy 

366 


366     RISE  OF  CHINESE  REPUBLIC     [chap,  xvm 

and  fortify  Port  Arthur,  Wei-hai  Wei,  etc.,  an 
operation  which  was  by  way  of  placing  Great 
Britain  in  an  unusually  sympathetic  relation- 
ship with  her  had  not  our  occupation  of  Upper 
Burma  in  1886  stimulated  the  Marquess  Tseng 
from  his  London  post  of  observation  to  attempt 
with  us  at  Bhamo  a  repetition  of  his  successes 
with  Russia  touching  the  Hi  domain.  The 
question  of  Indian  trade  with  Tibet  subsequently 
complicated  the  Burma  frontier  discussion,  which 
latter  ultimately  involved  China  in  triangular 
difficulties  with  ourselves  and  France  (1894-5). 
In  1891  the  Siberian  railway  (the  Tashkend 
extension  of  which  had  already  attracted  China's 
uneasy  attention  in  1881)  was  inaugurated  at 
its  far- eastern  end  by  the  present  Czar,  and 
simultaneously  Count  Cassini  appeared  upon  the 
scene  at  Peking.  For  some  years  since  the  Port 
Hamilton  bungle  of  1886,  things  had  smouldered 
in  comparative  quiet  in  Corea,  but  China's  general 
attitude  had  meanwhile  become  somewhat 
aggressive,  haughty,  and  notably  anti-missionary, 
after  Admiral  Lang — a  British  Captain,  lent  to 
China — had  shown  the  dragon  flag  in  the 
southern  and  Japanese  seas ;  she  had  lost 
foreign  sympathy.  In  1894  the  sudden  out- 
break of  the  Sino-Japanese  war,  however,  took 
every  one  by  surprise,  culminating,  as  it  did,  in 
the  crushing  defeat  of  China,  the  destruction  of 
her  fleet  for  the  second  time,  and  the  loss  of 
Formosa  :  Germany,  notwithstanding,  success- 
fully engineered  a  joint  effort  with  Russia  and 
France  to  secure  Japan's  renunciation  of  the 
Liao  Tung  peninsula  point  of  vantage ;  but  Japan 
held  on  to  Wei-hai  Wei,  on  the  mainland  oppo- 
site, as  security  for  the  fulfilment  of  other  peace- 
treaty  conditions  ;  and  now  began  the  first  of 
those  heavy  foreign  borrowings  which  have  since 
landed  China  into  such  financial  embarrassment. 


A.D.  1896-8]         DESCENSUS    AVERNI  367 

Li  Hung-chang,  after  settling  matters  with 
Japan,  proceeded  to  Europe  and  America  in 
1896  to  see  what  he  could  do  there  to  mend 
matters  politically  ;  as  he  was  still  burning  with 
a  sense  of  personal  and  patriotic  humiliation  at 
his  diplomatic  defeat  by  Count  Ito  in  Japan,  it 
seems  certain  that  he  must  have  had  a  large 
share  (probably  when  in  Russia)  in  the  concoc- 
tion of  the  Cassini  treaty  concluded  at  Peking 
that  autumn :  indeed,  he  was  appointed  on  his 
return  to  assist  at  the  Foreign  Office  only  a  day 
or  two  after  its  conclusion.  In  a  secret  clause 
of  that  treaty  certain  preferential  "options"  at 
Kiao  Chou  (never  published,  I  think,  except  in 
Chinese)  were  granted  to  Russia. 

Meanwhile  Germany,  as  "honest  broker"  in 
the  Liao  Tung  affair,  had  received  no  reward  ; 
but  at  an  interview  with  the  Czar  about  that 
time,  William  the  Second  seems  to  have  twisted 
some  sort  of  an  acquiescence  out  of  the  Kiao  Chou 
discussion  with  the  Czar  and  Prince  Lobanoff  or 
his  successor  (just  before  or  shortly  after  that 
statesman's  death  in  August  1906),  which,  on  the 
murder  of  some  German  missionaries  in  1897,  he 
treated  as  part  justification  for  his  audacious 
seizure  of  what  was  a  secret  option  rather  than 
an  admitted  Russian  "  right "  ;  and  thus  we  find 
Germany  plumped  down  almost  exactly  opposite 
the  commanding  spot  on  which  she  had  hypo- 
critically objected  to  the  Japanese  presence. 
Russia  was  therefore  not  long  before  she  found 
an  excuse  for  leasing  the  coveted  Port  Arthur. 
Japan's  security  hold  on  Wei-hai  Wei  being  now 
liquidated,  China,  ever  ready  to  set  one  barbarian 
against  the  other,  agreed  in  May  1898  that  Japan 
should  hand  it  over  to  Great  Britain  for  as  long 
as  Russia  held  Port  Arthur;  and,  moreover, 
the  mainland  territory  opposite  Hongkong  was 
largely  extended  for  Great  Britain's  benefit. 


368     RISE  OF  CHINESE  REPUBLIC     [chap,  xviii 

Meanwhile  in  April  the  French  had  taken 
"  French  "  leave  and  secured  a  free  port,  with 
Hinterland,  in  the  extreme  south  ;  and  even  the 
Italians  were  claiming  countervailing  coastal  con- 
cessions between  Ningpo  and  Foochow  (success- 
fully resisted).  Thus  abject  China  had  almost 
resigned  herself  to  the  "  melon-slicing"  or  spheres 
of  influence  process  when  the  young  Emperor, 
under  the  vivifying  influence  of  the  Cantonese  re- 
former K'ang  Yu-wei,  suddenly  took  every  one's 
breath  away  by  launching  a  series  of  revolutionary 
edicts  with  the  object  of  shaking  up  China  from 
her  lethargy  ;  but,  as  to  popular  representation, 
there  had  been,  up  to  this  date,  no  visible  demand 
for  it ;  reform  was  inspired  from  above.  There 
was  really  nothing  amiss  about  the  matter  of 
this  reform  ;  it  was  rather  the  abrupt  manner 
of  the  move  that  roused  conservative  and  pocket 
interests  to  hostility.  The  old  Dowager,  who 
had  long  retired  with  her  eunuchs  to  an  inoffen- 
sive otium  cum  dignitate,  now  angrily  emerged 
from  her  seclusion.  K'ang  Yu-wei  and  the 
Emperor  tried  to  suppress  her,  and  enlisted  the 
aid  of  Yiian  Shi-k'ai  (who  since  the  disastrous 
Japanese  war  had  been  training  up  an  effective 
army  near  Tientsin).  But  instead  of  murdering 
the  Dowager's  nephew  the  Viceroy  Jungluh, 
Yiian  made  to  him,  as  his  military  chief,  a  clean 
breast  of  the  business  ;  the  Viceroy  hastened  to 
Peking ;  the  Emiperor  was  placed  under  sur- 
veillance ;  the  Dowager  assumed  charge  once 
more ;  and  all  the  premature  reforms  were 
summarily  annulled.  But  with  these  suspicious 
events  a  glimmering  of  true  patriotic  feeling, 
coupled  with  sympathy  for  the  Manchu  Emperor, 
had  now  begun  to  possess  even  the  Chinese 
mind ;  to  which  must  be  added  a  sentiment  of 
disgust  at  Manchu  cabinet's  incapacity  to  de- 
fend the  integrity  of  an  ancient  empire  against 


A.D.  1898-1902]     THREE   GOOD   VICEROYS       369 

foreign  aggression  in  the  same  way  that  the 
Japanese  had  done  for  themselves. 

This  indefinite  bitter  feeling  culminated  in  the 
ill-conceived  "  Boxer  "  revolt,  which  was  simply 
an  inarticulate  protest  and  an  arms-taking 
against  the  sea  of  troubles  mistily  visualised. 
Practically  it  ended  in  the  "  Boxers  "  saying  to 
the  dynasty : — "Clear  these  (European)  foreigners 
out,  or  get  out  yourselves."  It  was  this 
consciousness  of  a  quandary  that  forced  the 
Dowager  to  adopt  the  hedging  or  "  run  with  the 
hare  and  hunt  w4th  the  hounds  "  attitude  that 
proved  so  mystifying  to  onlookers  during  the 
Legation  siege.  Her  sanest  adviser  close  at  hand 
was  Jungluh.  Fortunately  the  experienced  as 
well  as  extremely  sane  viceroys  of  the  Yangtsze 
valley,  co-operating  with  Governor  Yiian  Sh'i- 
k'ai  of  Shantung  province,  saved  the  situation 
beyond  the  bounds  of  Peking  just  in  time ;  and 
after  the  Legation  relief  in  the  autumn  of  1900 
it  was  the  task  of  the  veteran  Li  Hung-chang  to 
cobble  up  the  best  peace  he  could  with  the 
assembly  of  eleven  foreign  envoys  at  Peking. 
But,  after  indulging  in  this  egregious  dance, 
China  had  naturally  to  pay  the  piper,  the  neces-? 
sary  huge  foreign  loans  of  course  increasing  her 
permanent  commitments  to  an  enormous  extent. 
On  return  in  1901  from  her  self-imposed  exile 
in  West  China,  the  Dowager  set  industriously  to 
work  upon  real  reform,  military,  judicial,  finan- 
cial, administrative,  and  what  not,  acting  chiefly 
under  the  earnest  and  detailed  exhortations  of 
the  two  Yangtsze  viceroys  Liu  K'un-yih  and 
Chang  Chi-tung  above  referred  to. 

Meanwhile  Yiian  Shi-k'ai,  who  on  Li  Hung- 
chang' s  death  had  become  Viceroy  at  Tientsin, 
and  had  seen  with  his  own  eyes  how  well 
foreigners  administered  that  place,  showed  an 
excellent  example  by  putting  locally  into  prac- 


370    RISE  OF  CHINESE  REPUBLIC    [chap,  xviii 

tical  effect  a  number  of  foreign  methods,  coupled 
with  genuine  reforms.  At  Peking  a  thorough 
investigation  into  constitutional  principles  was 
made,  with  a  decided  bias  in  favour  of  the 
limited  German  and  Japanese  types.  The 
Dowager  herself  gradually  followed  the  lines 
taken  in  1898  by  the  rash  young  Emperor  she 
had  ruthlessly  put  in  the  background,  and  by 
1906-1907  not  only  was  a  Constitution  promised 
within  nine  years,  but  effective  armies  were 
created,  a  free  press  spread  general  intelligence, 
and  China  was  rapidly  being  covered  with  a 
network  of  business-like  railways.  The  fierce 
war  of  1904-5  between  Russia  and  Japan  had 
meanwhile  practically  left  China  proper  un- 
touched, and  indeed  had  given  her  as  a  tertia 
gaudens  a  welcome  respite  of  breathing  time ; 
as  for  Manchuria,  which  economically  scarcely 
concerns — or  then  concerned- — China  at  all,  it 
had  been  for  a  time  quietly  abandoned  or 
ignored  as  a  heaven-sent  cockpit  for  the  two 
formidable  com.batant  neighbours.  China's  official 
history  scarcely  mentions  the  war !  It  was  quite 
a  coincidence  and  not  by  calculation  that  Great 
Britain — since  1902  an  ally  of  Japan — also 
found  1904  a  convenient  year  for  settling  her 
accumulated  disputes  with  Tibet  about  rival 
influences  there,  and  so  far  from  "  grabbing  " 
anything  for  herself  beyond  the  long- stipulated 
frontier  trade,  she  really  placed  Manchu  authority 
in  Tibet  in  a  stronger  position  than  it  had  been 
for  some  years ;  in  fact,  the  way  was  left  almost 
too  generously  open  for  the  reconstitution  of 
Chinese  suzerainty  during  the  four  years  of  the 
Dalai  Lama's  flight,  and  a  fair  understanding 
with  Russia  was  arrived  at  besides. 

But  now  we  come  to  the  more  immediate 
causes  of  the  revolution  of  1911,  the  brewing  of 
which,   as  we  have  seen,   had  been  in  reality 


A.D.  1908-1915]     A    GIGANTIC    BLUNDP^R  371 

going  on  steadily  ever  since  the  fringes  of  China 
— Corea,  Manchuria,  Formosa,  Annam,  Burma, 
Tibet,  and  part  of  Hi  in  turn — liad  either 
dropped  off  or  been  lopped  off.  The  Dowager- 
Empress  and  the  Emperor  unexpectedly  died 
within  a  few  hours  of  each  other,  and  whilst  the 
forgiven  but  unrepentant  Dalai,  on  his  way  back 
to  Tibet,  was  actually  on  the  spot  in  Peking  to 
see  things  for  himself  and  contribute  his  prayers 
for  the  im^perial  souls.  Instead  of  continuing 
to  utilise  Yiian  Shi-k'ai's  services  in  conjunction 
with  those  of  the  surviving  elder  statesmen  at 
Peking,  the  late  Emperor's  brother  and  wife 
(the  Regent  and  the  new  Dowager)  unfortun- 
ately soon  succumbed  to  a  vindictive  palace 
intrigue,  having  for  its  main  object  the  avenging 
of  the  late  Emperor's  1898  failure  ;  and  thus 
the  only  rem.aining  statesman  in  China  who  had 
had  practical  dealings  with  the  representatives 
of  all  nations,  and  had  been  able  to  test  in  the 
actual  working  improved  administrative  and 
military  measures  based  on  foreign  concrete 
examples,  was  relegated  under  a  silly  pretext  to 
private  obscurity. 

The  master  hand  having  been  thus  removed, 
the  new  provincial  councils  began  to  meddle, 
and  attempts  were  made  to  speed  up  the 
National  Assembly  temporarily  acting  for  the 
Parliament  promised  for  1915.  Moreover,  the 
newly  created  foreign-drilled  armies  rapidly  dis- 
covered that  they  possessed  a  coherence  and  a 
dignity  vis-a-vis  of  civilians  they  had  never  en- 
joyed before.  This  unwelcome  military  pro- 
vincialism, particularly  in  railway  management, 
coupled  with  the  perception  of  its  ominous 
political  importance,  made  the  Manchus  on  the 
one  hand  as  eager  for  central  control  as  the 
provinces  on  the  other  were  determined  for 
local  management :  the  attempt  on  the  part  of 
26 


372     RISE  OF  CHINESE  REPUBLIC     [chap,  xviii 

the  Imperial  Government  to  place  Manchu 
princes  in  control  of  military,  naval,  and  other 
departments  might  have  succeeded  if  these 
young  men  had  exhibited  adequate  strength  of 
character.  Financial  reforms  were  nullified  by 
rival  central  and  provincial  claims  to  likiUf 
which,  so  far  from  being  abolished  as  stipulated 
under  the  Mackay  treaty  of  1902,  was  actually 
used  more  and  more  by  short-sighted  foreign 
financiers  as  a  security  for  further  loans.  Thus 
many  local  leaders  of  the  Chinese  people,  at  first 
sympathetically  inclined  towards  the  Regent, 
his  infant  son  the  new  Emperor,  and  the  new 
Dowager-Empress  (widow  of  the  late  Emperor, 
the  Regent's  brother),  gradually  began  to  despair 
of  ever  obtaining  the  promised  Constitution, 
and  shrank  back  with  horror  at  the  prospect  of 
effective  central  military  and  railway  control 
riveting  their  loosened  chains  to  Peking  corrup- 
tion once  more ;  the  National  Assembly  actually 
did  meet  in  1910,  and  a  programme  of  graduated 
work  was  sanctioned,  the  Emperor,  however, 
remaining  "  above  the  law,  but  living  within 
the  law,"  like  Justinian  of  old  and  the  Emperor 
of  Japan  anew. 

So,  when  the  Hankow-Wu-ch'ang  revolution 
prematurely  broke  out  in  the  autumn  of  1911 
(October  10),  the  cry  of  "Away  with  the 
Manchus  "  raised  there  was  immediately  caught 
up  by  the  provinces  generally  ;  Sun  Yat-sen 
and  the  exiled  republicans  of  1898  hurried  back 
to  China  with  all  speed  ;  and  then,  as  a  last 
hope,  the  Manchu  government,  in  their  conster- 
nation, appealed  perforce  to  the  very  man  they 
had  flouted  in  1909,  begging  him  to  come  back 
and  save  the  situation.  This  on  pressure  he  at 
once  loyally  attempted  to  do,  first  as  Viceroy 
of  Hu  Kwang  (the  two  lake  provinces)  and  with 
combined  powers  as  Generalissimo  for  the  whole 


A.D.  1911-1912]  VAE    VICTIS!  373 

Yang-tsze  valley,  and  then  as  Premier  at  Peking 
(13th  November),  where  again  he  was  at  once 
placed  in  supreme  command  over  all  the  metro- 
politan forces. 

Meanwhile  as  anarchical  war  was  still  going 
on  or  threatening  in  the  provinces,  with  a  pro- 
fessed view  to  stopping  bloodshed,  the  baby 
Emperor  under  the  Dowager's  and  Regent's 
direction  announced  to  the  spirits  of  his  ancestors 
(26  November)  the  Magna  Charta  of  nineteen 
articles  which  the  Senate  or  Deliberative  Parlia- 
ment (Tsz-cheng  Yiian)  had  passed  on  2nd  Novem- 
ber, and  as  a  further  act  of  propitiation  all 
Manchu  princes  Avere  removed  from  high  mili- 
tary and  naval  command.  On  6th  December 
the  Regent  gave  up  his  seals  of  office,  and  the 
next  day  an  imperial  decree,  countersigned  by 
all  the  heads  of  departments,  sanctioned  the 
cutting  off  of  the  Manchu  queue,  and  likewise 
the  discussion  of  a  Western  or  solar  in  place  of 
the  ancient  lunar-solar  Calendar.  On  the  28th 
December  an  edict  of  the  Dowager-Empress, 
bearing  the  imperial  seal  and  countersigned  by 
all  departmental  ministers,  left  it  to  an  Emer- 
gency Parliament  {Lin-sh'i  Kwoh-hui)  to  decide 
whether  the  new  form  of  constitutional  govern- 
ment should  be  monarchical  (Kiin-chu)  or  re- 
publican (Kung-ho).  However,  all  these  and 
many  other  desperate  efforts  to  save  the  dynasty 
were  of  no  avail,  and  the  very  last  imperial 
decrees,  dated  11th  February,  but  issued  the 
12th  February,  announced  that  the  Dowager- 
Empress  and  the  Emperor  had  form.ally  abdi- 
cated under  agreed  conditions  then  fully  set 
out :  it  is  characteristic  that  the  deceased  old 
Dowager's  brother  Kweisiang  was,  as  though  by 
a  Parthian  shot,  at  the  same  moment  appointed 
to  a  lucrative  post  in  the  Peking  Octroi  (he  died 
in  the  following  December). 


374    RISE  OF  CHINESE  REPUBLIC    [chap,  xvin 

On  the  13th  Yiian  Shi-k'ai  issued  his  first 
mandate  as  "  Plenipotentiary  to  function  as 
Emergency  President  of  the  Repubhcan  {Kung- 
ho)  Government,"  from  which  circumstance  it 
stands  out  plainly  as  an  historical  fact  that,  in 
technical  form  at  least,  the  Republic  was  not  a 
self-creation,  but  the  result  of  an  act  of  imperial 
grace.  The  following  day  tlie  Hawaiian-born 
Cantonese  Sun  Yat-sen,  vv^ho  had  arrived  in 
Shanghai  on  the  26th  and  been  elected  President 
on  29th  December  (elected  at  Nanking,  but 
election  sanctioned  by  the  Shanghai  delegates), 
telegraphed  his  congratulations  to  Yiian  and,  with 
the  Nanking  Assembly's  approval,  announced 
his  willingness  to  resign ;  his  Vice-president  Li 
Yiian-hung  also  sent  from  Wu-ch'ang  a  friendly 
message,  and  promised  to  arrange  with  Nanking 
for  a  conference :  the  official  gazette  of  the 
17th  February  (30th  of  the  12th  moon)  contained 
an  announcement  that  Yuan  Shi-k'ai  had  tele- 
graphed (presumably  on  the  29th)  a  reply  to 
Sun  Yat-sen  and  to  the  Nanking  Assembly 
{Ts^an-i  Yiian);  and  in  the  gazette  of  the  1st 
moon  (cyclic  year,  not  reign  year),  but  dated 
30th  of  the  12th  moon,  appeared  an  announce- 
ment from  "  the  newly  elected  President  Yiian  " 
to  the  effect  that  "  we  must  now  use  the  first 
day  of  the  purely  solar  year,  jen-tsz,  of  the  endless 
cycle,  and  style  it  the  18th  day  of  the  second 
month  of  the  first  year  of  the  Chinese  Republic  " 
(Chung-hwa  Min-kwoh).  These  details  are  his- 
torically important  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
Li  Yiian-hung  had  in  October  already  used  the 
endless  cyclic  era  beginning  conventionally  with 
the  mythical  Emperor  Hwang  Ti  (2697  B.C.), 
and  had  styled  a.d.  1911  "the  4609th  year  of 
Hwang  Ti." 

Thus  also  it  is  historically  recorded  how,  by 
ingenious  manipulation,  Yiian  Shi-k'ai  succeeded 


A.D.  1912]  VIVAT    RES    PUBLICA !  375 

in  getting  rid  of  the  Manchu  dynasty  on  dignified 
terms  agreeable  to  the  Manchu  princes  them- 
selves ;  how  the  Manchu  dynasty,  ignoring  the 
Nanking  Republic,  created  the  Republic  in  a 
voluntary  way  through  their  own  plenipoten- 
tiary agent  Yiian ;  and  how  Yiian  in  turn 
never  took  any  notice  of  the  new  love  at  Nan- 
king till  he  was  clearly  off  with  the  old  love  at 
Peking  ;  Nanking  making  the  first  advances  to 
him,  he  himself  as  the  "  newly  elected  "  (inferen- 
tially  by  Nanking  included)  in  the  plenitude  of, 
his  powers  establishing  a  Min-kwoh,  which  was 
neither  monarchical  (Kiln-chu)  nor  Kung-ho  as 
suggested  by  the  Emergency  Parliament  on 
28th  December.  It  is  necessary  to  emphasise 
the  exact  bearing  of  all  these  points,  in  order 
to  bring  out  the  generation  of  the  Chinese 
Republic  in  its  true  historical  light. 

At  the  end  of  February  a  serious  military 
revolt,  accompanied  by  looting,  broke  out  at 
Peking,  to  the  personal  hum.iliation  of  the 
President,  whose  position  had  really  been  upheld 
by  these  very  men's  support :  it  was  suppressed 
with  difficulty,  and  not  on  creditable  terms  : 
it  formed,  however,  a  fair  pretext  for  Yiian' s 
declining  to  proceed  to  Nanking  for  investiture, 
as  he  had  to  "  preserve  order "  at  Peking. 
On  10th  March  Yiian  Shi-k'ai  was  formally  and 
duly  installed  as  President,  took  the  oath  of 
fidelity  to  the  Republic  in  the  presence  of  the 
Nanking  delegates,  the  Army  chiefs,  the  Manchu, 
Mongol,  Tibetan,  and  Turki  representatives, 
the  Foreign  Custom.s  and  Post-office  officials, 
and  the  European,  Japanese,  and  American 
journalists  :  the  yoh-fah  ( =  concise  law)  or 
Constitution  of  fifty-six  Articles  as  drawn  up 
by  Li  Yiian-hung  at  Wu-ch'ang  in  December  and 
adopted,  with  him  as  Vice-president,  by  tlie 
Nanking  republic,  seems  to  have  been  promul- 


376    RISE  OF  CHINESE  REPUBLIC     [chap,  xviii 

gated  as  part  of  what  on  10th  March  the  new 
President  swore  to  maintain ;  the  defect  in  this 
hastily  drawn-up  document  was  that  it  had  been 
draughted  by  neo-Chinese,  i.e.  by  men  more 
ignorant  of  Chinese  administrative  history  and 
practice  than  competent  to  introduce  theoretical 
European  reforms ;  and  tliis  absence  of  experi- 
enced northern  deliberative  concurrence  natur- 
ally kept  open  the  cleft  between  the  conserva- 
tive or  northern  and  the  ultra-radical  or  southern 
elemicnts  ;  these  latter  were  represented  by  the 
T^ ung-7neng  Hwei  or  "  United  League  Associa- 
tion," founded  by  Sun  Yat-sen  and  [General  ^] 
Hwang  Hing  shortly  after  the  "  Boxer  "  humilia- 
tion of  1901,  but  afterwards  known  as  the 
Kwoh-min  Tang  or  "  Popular  Party,"  under 
which  name  after  Yiian's  installation  it  deliber- 
ately set  to  work,  by  m.eans  of  the  two-thirds 
vote  rule,  to  thwart  the  action  both  of  the  new 
President  and  of  his  provisional  Parliamxcnt. 

Meanwhile  Yiian's  old  Corea  henchman  T'ang 
Shao-i  (now  enrolled  as  a  member  of  the  United 
League)  as  Premier  had  formed  a  ministry ; 
Hwang  Hing  had  been  propitiated  with  the 
post  of  Chief-of-the-Staff,  also  with  the  rank 
of  Field-Marshal  to  maintain  order  in  the 
Yang-tsze  Valley;  and  an  important  railway 
inspectorship  had  been  invented  in  order  to 
conciliate  the  disappointed  Sun  Yat-sen,  who 
was  evidently  waiting  for  a  "  job,"  as  he  does 
not  appear  to  have  formally  abandoned  his 
southern  presidency  until  a  little  later,  i.e.  on 
29th  March.  No  doubt  it  was  under  the  restraint 
of  this  inconvenient  covert  opposition  that  Yiian 
on  19th  March  issued  his  "  scrap  of  paper," 
denouncing  by  "  mandate  "  those  misguided  per- 
sons who  advised  a  return  to  monarchy,  and 

^  Died  as  such  towards  the  end  of  1916,  and  buried  with  the 
highest  ofificial  honours  as  a  good  patriot. 


A.D.  1912]  TOO    MANY    COOKS  377 

referring  once  more  to  his  solemn  oath  of  fidehty 
to  the  Kung-ho  principle.  On  13th  April  the 
Vice-president  Li  Yiian-lmng,  though  remaining 
at  Wu-ch'ang,  was  made  Chief-of-the-Staff,  and 
a  mandate  recommended  the  "  five  races  "  com- 
posing the  Chinese  dominion  {cf.  p.  375)  to  take 
advantage  of  the  new  privilege  of  intermarriage  : 
one  more  effort  was  made  also  to  secure  the  aboli- 
tion of  the  barbarous  "  squeezed  feet  "  custom 
amongst  purely  Chinese  females.  The  temporary 
Parliament  now  gave  way  to  a  National  Assembly 
or  Advisory  Council  (Ts'an-i  Yuan)  of  more  man- 
ageable proportions.  A  few  revolts  or  rebellions, 
now  of  the  mihtary  discontents,  or  anon  the  "  last 
ditchers  "  of  the  Manchu  Party,  in  several  pro- 
vinces, were  quelled  without  much  difficulty  one 
after  the  other ;  but  still  the  civil  agitators  of 
the  United  League  displayed  persistent  hostility 
at  Peking,  where  the  northerners  or  conserva- 
tives had,  notwithstanding,  at  last  succeeded  in 
reversing  the  practical  balance  of  power. 

For  some  time  attention  was  now  concentrated 
upon  foreign  loan  negotiations  ;  the  question 
of  what  military  and  naval  flags  should  be 
adopted  was  finally  settled  ;  and  presidential 
mandates  once  more  dealt  seriously  with  the 
necessity  of  getting  rid  of  the  opium  curse. 
Then  there  were  difficulties  with  Tibet  and  Outer 
Mongolia,  both  of  which  territories  had  at  an 
early  stage  declared  their  independence  ;  similar 
tendencies  manifested  themselves  in  Chinese 
Turkestan  and  the  Tarim  valley.  T'ang  Shao-i, 
harassed  by  United  League  squabbles,  soon  got 
tired  of  his  premiership,  from  which  he  quietly 
"  walked  away  "  one  day;  as  he  did  so  narrowly 
escaping  assassination  by  a  political  crank  at 
Tientsin.  Meanwhile,  talk  became  more  general  in 
China  about  the  advantages  of  a  Dictatorship,  if 
only  in  order  to  put  a  stop  to  this  eternal  parlia- 


378    RISE  OF  CHINESE  REPUBLIC    [chap,  xviii 

mentary  wrangling ;  at  the  same  time  it  must 
be  allowed  that  Sun  Yat-sen  and  Hwang  Hing 
had  a  hearty  reception  when  they  visited  Peking 
in  August,  though  in  view  of  the  recent  execu- 
tion at  Peking  of  two  of  their  quondam  military 
friends  they  felt  extremely  uneasy  as  to  their 
own  safety.  On  10th  January,  1913,  Parlia- 
ment (elected  mysteriously)  was  announced  to 
meet  in  April,  and  it  was  amidst  all  these  seeth- 
ing intrigues  that  the  second  Dowager  died 
on  22nd  February ;  and  after  the  assembly  of 
Parliament  in  April  America  and  Mexico  "  re- 
cognised "  the  Republic. 

The  murder  at  Shanghai  of  the  Popular  Party's 
hero,  Sung  Kiao-jen,  in  March  1913,  placed 
Yiian  Shi-k'ai  in  rather  a  suspicious  position, 
and  perhaps  it  was  as  a  consequence  of  the 
general  uneasy  feeling  as  to  his  connivance  that 
in  May  a  really  serious  revolt  broke  out  once 
more  in  the  Yang-tsze  provinces,  the  disgruntled 
Hwang  Hing  joining  hands  in  the  fray,  in  open 
declared  war  against  Yiian' s  growing  pretensions  ; 
against  Hwang  &  Co.  was  pitted  by  Yiian  the  re- 
doubtable General  Chang  Hiin  with  his  "pig- 
tailed"  army,  which  subsequently  captured  and 
mercilessly  sacked  the  city  of  Nanking.  Chang 
Hiin  is  one  of  the  most  curious  and  picturesque 
products  of  the  great  revolution  ;  he  had  faith- 
fully held  Nanking  for  the  Emperor  in  1911 
until,  driven  out  by  the  republicans,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  escaping  with  his  defending  army  to 
the  important  land  and  water  junction  of  Sii 
Chou  in  North  Kiang  Su,  one  of  the  three  or 
four  real  hinges  or  pivot  points  of  the  whole 
empire  * ;  emerging  from  this  stronghold  (where 
he  is  still  practically  independent  in  1917),  he 
assisted  early  in  1914  in  the  White  Wolf 
robber  campaign,  and  ever  since  then  he  has, 
by  his  jnonunciamentos  upon  "  policy  "  generally, 

1  c/.  p.  252. 


A.D.  1913-1914]  OH  !  WHAT  A  TANGLED  WEB  !  379 

been  a  danger  to  the  best  interests  of  public 
order  ;   no  one  can  get  at  him  or  round  him. 

But,  to  return  to  1913.  In  the  autunm  Yiian 
arrested  certain  members  of  both  houses  of 
Parhament,  and  began  to  take  strong  measures 
towards  "  controUing  "  recalcitrant  votes.  The 
result  of  all  this  intriguing  v/as  that  on  6th 
October  he  was  elected  Permanent  President,  and 
was  solemnly  inaugurated  as  such  on  the  second 
anniversary  of  the  1911  revolution,  receiving  in 
due  course  the  coveted  recognition  of  the 
"  Powers  "  that  chiefly  mattered  to  him,  i.e.  the 
European  Powers  and  Japan.  The  Committee 
charged  to  draft  a  new  Constitution  were  so 
obstinately  impracticable,  however,  that  the 
result  of  their  efforts  by  the  beginning  of  Novem- 
ber was  only  to  clog  still  further  the  wheels  of 
real  progress,  and  to  chain  President,  Cabinet, 
and  Judiciary  alike  to  the  uncertainties  of  par- 
liamentary caprice  ;  seeing  which  Yiian  Shi-k'ai, 
now  firmly  seated  with  the"  desired  foreign 
support,  summarily  broke  up  the  Popular  Party 
altogether,  and  by  a  sort  of  Pride's  Purge  drove 
its  members  entirely  out  of  Parliament. 

As  a  reward  for  retaking  Nanking  in  1913, 
Chang  Hiin  had  been  temporarily  rewarded  with 
the  military  governorship  of  Kiang  Sli,  from 
which  post  (after  declaring  his  "  indepen- 
dence ")  he  was  only  coaxed  out,  in  January  1914, 
by  heavy  money  payments,  and  by  his  appoint- 
m.ent  to  the  nebulous  new  charge  of  Supreme 
Inspector  of  the  Yang-tsze  Defences,  which  in 
1917  he  still  holds  against  all  comers.*  It  is 
impossible  to  deny  that  all  this  action  of  Yiian' s 
in  1913-1917  was  a  coup  d'etat  tending  towards 
monarchy,  and  it  seems  certain  that  the  final 
denoument  was  solely  prepared  in  secrecy  by  the 
President  himself;  but  up  to  this  date  Yiian 
Shi-k'ai  had  by  no  overt  act  disclosed  dynastic 

^  Though  nominally  Military  Governor  of  An  Hwei. 


380    RISE  OF  CHINESE  REPUBLIC    [chap,  xviii 

ambitions,  contrary  to  his  declaration  of  March 
1912  ;  and,  indeed,  the  fact  that  his  ministry  in- 
cluded such  staunch  radicals  as  Liang  K'i-ch'ao 
and  others  showed  that  a  firm  policy  had  now 
the  general  approval.  The  arch-reformer  of  1898, 
K'ang  Yu-wei,  seems  to  have  kept  in  the  back- 
ground during  the  whole  revolution,  but  his 
then  comrade  Liang,  now  in  power,  succeeded  in 
obtaining  for  K'ang  and  his  family  their  con- 
fiscated estates  near  Canton.  It  was  also  now 
that  the  Vice-president  Li  Yiian-hung  (who, 
however,  had  to  steal  off  in  the  night  like  a 
thief  in  order  to  avoid  his  jealous  soldiers'  con- 
straint) thought  he  might  safely  lend  his  moral 
support  to  Yiian  and  venture  to  Peking,  where 
he  duly  arrived  on  10th  December;  formed  a 
marriage  alliance  with  Yiian' s  family,  and  for 
a  couple  of  years  disappeared  into  absolute 
obscurity  as  Chief- of -the-Staff. 

As  a  next  step,  to  take  the  place  of  the  ob- 
noxious Parliament,  the  President  organised  an 
Advisory  Council  {Ts^an-cheng  Yuan)  of  members 
(paid)  nominated  by  himself,  and  in  the  following 
May  Li  Yiian-hung  was  appointed  nominal  chief 
of  it  with  a  salary  of  $10,000  a  m^onth.;  m.any 
of  the  other  members  were  prominent  men.  A 
good  deal  of  really  useful  work  was  accomplished 
during  the  year  1914  ;  the  military  and  civil 
governorships  were  reorganised  under  historical 
names  ^  sounding  less  aggressively  republican  ; 
the  lesser  high  officials  in  the  provinces  were 
recast,  and  had  their  relative  degrees  of  subor- 
dination to  the  Peking  Boards  and  the  Provin- 
cial Governors  more  intelligibly  fixed  ;  revenue 
began  to  flow  into  Peking  from  the  provinces  ; 
Sir  Richard  Dane  got  his  hand  well  in  upon  the 
reformed  Salt  Administration ;  internal  loans 
proved  successful ;  foreigners  were  content 
with  the  situation  ;  and  it  really  looked  as  though 

»  c/.  p.  179. 


A.D.  1913]    "WHAT   WOULD   DOVEY   DO?"      381 

China  were  settling  down  at  last  to  a  practicable 
Repviblic — in  name  at  least,  if  monarchical  in 
effect ;  the  only  uncomfortable  thing  was, 
What  shall  happen  if  Yuan  dies  ?  Is  good 
Vice-president  Li  capable  of  wearing  gracefully 
and  effectively  the  mantle  of  succession  ?  Presi- 
dent Yiian  anyway  played  a  bold  hand,  and  at 
Christmas  time  proceeded  in  state  to  worship 
Heaven  for  all  the  world  like  any  Emperor ;  even 
the  dethroned  Manchu  house  agreed  to  certain 
modifications  in  its  status. 

The  breaking  out  of  the  great  European  war 
in  August  1914  must  necessarily  have  had  some 
effect  in  strengthening  both  the  coherence  of 
China  and  the  firm  hold  of  Yiian,  if  only  because 
financial  busy-bodies  and  grasping  syndicates 
of  all  nationalities  had  now  less  leisure  and  less 
money  at  their  disposal  for  the  Far  East  than 
had  been  the  case  before.  The  year  1915  opened 
with  the  arrangements  for  the  drafting  of  a  new 
Constitution  in  place  of  that  so  summarily 
abolished  in  1913.  It  had  been  originally  pro- 
posed by  Japan  that  Germany  should  hand  over 
Ts'ing-tao  to  China  "for  the  period  of  the  war"; 
but  when  the  Emden  started  out  on  her  raids, 
and  the  presumptuous  Kaiser  treated  Japan's 
offer  with  contempt,  he  received  a  sarcastic  ulti- 
matum, and  his  governor  was  ultimately  ejected, 
bag  and  baggage ;  moreover,  for  her  own  pro- 
tection Japan  was  obliged  to  formulate  certain 
at  first  sight  harsh  and  peremptory  demands 
upon  China  in  order  to  forestall  Teutonic  spite 
or  intrigue,  and  any  future  attempt  of  the  tricky 
Kaiser  to  wrest  from  China  by  violence  any 
Ersatz  "  place  in  the  sun  "  to  "  take  the  place  of 
Kiao  Chou  "  under  an  easily  forced  construction 
of  som,e  such  provision  in  the  1898  treaty.  In 
cavilling  at  the  excess  of  Japanese  demands,  the 
unfriendly  press  of  the  Far  East  seem  to  have 


382     RISE  OF  CHINESE  REPUBLIC     [chap,  xviii 

forgotten  this  prime  necessity  for  Japan  :  ^'  no 
Power  "  to  he  granted  any  coast  or  island  territory 
by  purchase  or  lease ;  that  is,  specifically, 
treacherous  Prussia. 

The  first  serious  signs  that  something  uncanny 
was  brooding  in  the  President's  mind,  or  in  the 
minds  of  those  of  his  creatures  who  were  suscept- 
tible  to  foreign  gold  and  intrigue,  manifested 
themselves  in  the  summer  of  1915,  when  a 
mysterious  society  called  the  Chii-an  Ilwei  or 
"  Peace-promxoting  Association  "  suddenly  blos- 
somed into  existence,  promoted  by  three  pro- 
minent members  of  the  Advisory  Council  itself, 
its  avowed  object  being  to  discredit  the  re- 
publican in  favour  of  the  monarchical  idea, 
or  at  all  events  to  deprecate  government  by 
popular  clamour  in  favour  of  concentrated  in- 
dividual rule.  The  next  thing  was  the  unex- 
pected pronouncement  of  the  Am.erican  Professor 
Goodnow,  one  of  Yiian's  political  advisers,  in 
the  same  sense;  it  being  well  known  at  the 
same  time,  or  at  all  events  generally  believed, 
that  no  such  germinations  had  taken  place  in 
the  universally  trusted  British  Adviser  Dr. 
Morrison's  sagacious  mind.  On  the  whole,  the 
Japanese  Adviser  Ariga,  seems  to  have  person- 
ally favoured  monarchy.  Then  came  a  number 
of  Chinese  "  petitions  "  of  doubtful  provenance 
from  all  quarters,  and  at  the  same  time  fairly 
definite  news  that  Yiian's  scapegrace  eldest  son 
Yiian  K' eh- ting  was  interesting  himself  in  the 
movement ;  whilst  on  the  other  hand  the  Minister 
of  Justice,  that  uncompromising  republican  Liang 
K'i-ch'ao,  showed  a  decided  tendency  to  leave  the 
Governm.ent.  The  Japanese  Minister,  M.  Hioki, 
hastened  back  from  furlough  to  Peking,  but 
made  no  opposition,  and  the  Germans  (who 
had  recently  displayed  considerable  intriguing 
activity  in  Harbin,  Tsing-tao,  and  Ningpo)  re- 


A.D.  1916]   IT  COMES  IN  DOUBTFUL  SHAPE   883 

mained  remarkably  silent  (so  far  as  the  general 
public  v\^as  aware). 

It  was  at  this  moment  that  Yiian  Shi-k'ai 
himself  seems  to  have  fallen  under  some  occult 
baleful  influence,  and  the  monarchical  agitation 
accordingly  grew  apace.  At  last  on  8th  October 
appeared  a  Presidential  Decree  setting  forth 
how  the  Advisory  Council  had  received  a  repre- 
sentation from  the  Temporary  Parliament  {Lih- 
jah  Yiian)  explaining  that  all  the  provinces, 
dominions.  Banners  (including  the  "  one-time 
Manchu  Heir  P'ulun),  Mongols,  Tibetans,  Turki, 
Chambers  of  Commerce,  Universities,  etc.,  were 
through  their  representatives  (2,006  votes)  of  one 
mind  in  favour  of  a  constitutional  monarchy 
(Kiln-chu  lih-hien),  or  "  sovereign  lord  with  a  con- 
stitution," and  suggesting  that  a  popular  vote 
sliould  be  taken.  Then  it  was  that  the  Japanese 
Charge  d' Affaires,  M.  Obata,  accompanied  by  the 
British  and  Russian  Ministers,  paid  a  hurried 
visit  to  the  Foreign  Office  to  recommend  post- 
ponement until  the  end  of  the  war,  on  the 
ground  that  troubles  might  break  out  and  involve 
the  treaty  ports ;  this  advice  was  endorsed 
by  France  and  Italy  shortly  afterwards.  Un- 
doubtedly at  this  moment  the  majority  of  the 
trading  interests,  foreign  as  well  as  Chinese,  were 
in  favour  of  trusting  Yiian ;  but  as  yet  no  one 
seems  to  have  contemplated  that  the  so-called 
Constitutional  Monarchy  would  take  the  ulti- 
mate form  of  a  despotic  hereditary  dynasty  on 
the  old  model.  The  United  States  were  too 
"proud"  to  interfere  in  China's  internal  affairs; 
the  Grand  Lamas  of  Tibet  remained  silent ;  and 
the  predatory  powers,  i.e,  Germany,  with  her 
insignificant  satellite  Austria,  still  observed  a 
mysterious  silence. 

Gradually  the  movement  which  began  so 
unaggressively  gained    irresistible    momentum  ; 


384     RISE  OF  CHINESE  REPUBLIC     [chap,  xviii 

adulatory  appeals  to  the  "Emperor"'  followed 
each  other  in  rapid  succession ;  but  at  least  one 
sane  document  justified  in  logical  and  circum- 
stantial terms  the  reversion  to  monarchy,  arguing 
the  matter  out  on  plain  business-like  grounds  ; 
and  this  remarkable  paper  was  a  long  aioologia 
of  4,000  characters  (8,000  EngHsh  words),  pub- 
lished in  the  official  gazette  day  after  day  for 
some  time,  by  the  Preparation  for  Parliament 
Bureau.  On  13th  December,  after  the  regula- 
tion three  refusals.  Yuan  accepted  the  imperial 
crown  in  a  mandate  countersigned  by  Luh 
Cheng-siang,  the  Secretary  of  State;  the  "  ques- 
tioning" Powers,  evidently  non-plussed,  simply 
stated  that  their  attitude  v/ould  be  "  expectant." 
Two  days  later  Vice-President  Li  was  created  a 
Prince ;  further  mandates  in  very  good  taste 
explained  and  justified  the  step  taken  by  the 
President;  but  on  the  22nd  a  real  "imperial" 
tornado  fairly  burst  in  a  shower  of  dukedoms, 
marquisates,  earldoms,  viscounties,  and  baronies, 
all  with  pensions.  Whilst  it  raged,  many  of  the 
President's  best  men  quietly  slipped  away  on 
various  pretexts ;  but  an  attem.pt  to  secure  at 
least  their  neutrality  in  some  particularly  im- 
portant cases  was  made  by  creating  "  Four 
Intimates"  from  three  ex -viceroys  and  a  well- 
known  sterling  Hanlin  Academician.  There  were 
also  distributed  som.e  posthumous  honours  to 
persons  who  had  suffered  for  the  State,  and  the 
new  Emperor  (who,  however,  never  once  assumed 
that  title,  or  its  honorific  attributes,  himself)  took 
the  opportunity  of  abolishing  the  employ  of 
eunuchs  and  the  supply  of  pretty  girls  for  the 
menus  plaisirs  of  the  palace  ;  nor  was  there  to 
be  any  kotowing  at  his  audiences. 

The  fat  was  now  irrevocably  in  the  fire  not- 
withstanding this  personal  moderation,  and  the 
unfortunate   Yuan,   having   once  mounted  the 


A.D.  1916]     ALL   THE    FAT    IN   THE    FIRE       885 

tiger,  had  to  go  on  with  his  John  Gilpin  ride. 
His  very  last  mandate  as  President  conferred  a 
princedom  upon  the  hereditary  Duke  Confucius 
the  Seventy-sixth,  who  expressed  his  thanks  a 
week  later ;  Li  Yiian-hung,  by  the  way,  had 
declined  his  princely  title  three  times.  On  the 
1st  January  a  new  era  was  created  under  the 
style  1st  year  of  Hung-hien^  which  term  may 
be  here  translated  "Great  Constitution";  but 
Yuan  never  at  any  time  abandoned  the  modest 
"mandate"  in  favour  of  the  old  imperial  "de- 
cree, respect  this."  However,  simultaneously 
with  these  events,  which  at  first  appeared  to  be 
proceeding  quite  smoothly,  came  the  ominous 
news  from  Yiin  Nan  that  the  province  had  de- 
clared its  independence.^  The  ex-tutuh  Ts'ai  Ao 
(Ch'oi  Ngok),  who  had  been  "  allowed  to  resign  " 
and  then  coaxed  to  Peking  in  1913-1914,  and  had 
later  been  given  a  high-sounding  sinecure  post 
there,  became  diplomatically  ill  in  November 
when  the  monarchy  boom  was  at  its  highest, 
sought  "  medical  "  advice  in  Japan, ^  and  worked 
his  w^ay  thence,  via  Tonquin,  to  his  former  pro- 
vince. Japan  declined  to  receive  a  special 
complimentary  envoy  from  China  "  at  this 
juncture,"  w^hich  probably  meant  that  the  Ameri- 
can, German,  and  Austrian  promise  of  recog- 
nition did  not  find  favour  in  that  quarter. 

The  discontent  fomented  by  Ts'ai  Ao  spread  ; 
two  other  southern  provinces  pronounced  ;  then 
two  coast  provinces  ;  and  soon  the  whole  of 
central  and  southern  China  was  in  such  a  blaze 
of    republican    enthusiasm    that    the    unhappy 

1  25th  December,  which  date  has  now  been  declared  a  national 
holiday. 

2  He  again  sought  Japanese  advice,  this  time  quite  seriously, 
as  mihtary  governor  of  Sz  Ch'wan,  towards  the  end  of  last  year, 
and  died  there  in  December  1916,  receiving  from  President  Li 
thu  highest  posthumous  honours,  and,  as  Hwang  Hing,  a  public 
funeral. 


386       RISE  OF  CHINESE  REPUBLIC   [chap,  xviii 

Yiian  had  to  give  way  and  go  through  the 
huinihation  of  reverting  to  the  repubhcan  era 
(Min-kwoh),  of  course  withdrawing  his  imperial  or 
at  least  monarchical  pretensions  (March  23rd). 
His  former  Secretary  of  State  (one  of  the  Four 
Intimates)  tried  to  save  the  situation  by  resum- 
ing his  old  post ;  but  it  was  too  late,  and  on 
22nd  April  he  resigned  in  favour  of  Twan  K'i-j  wei. 
The  cry,  "  Yiian  must  go,"  was  caught  up  on  all 
sides  ;  his  deadly  enemy,  the  fire-eating  ex-vice- 
roy "  Shum  "  (Ts'en  Ch'un-hiian),  emerged  from 
his  exile  in  the  Straits  Settlem.ents  and  joined  in 
the  fray  as  Generalissimo  of  the  South.  Both 
he  and  Sun  Yat-sen  issued  angry  manifestoes  ; 
T'ang  Shao-i  and  Wu  T'ing-fang  published 
"  open  letters "  of  cynically  friendly  advice, 
and  Liang  K'i-ch'ao  gave  to  the  public  press  a 
lengthy  expose  of  the  fraudulent  measures  that 
had  been  adopted  by  Yiian  in  order  to  "  nobble  " 
the  voters  in  each  province.  Yiian,  having 
squandered  his  funds,  made  the  situation  worse 
first  by  proclaiming  a  moratorium,  and  then  by 
endeavouring  to  create  out  of  the  Parliam.ent 
Preparation  Comimittee  an  Emergency  Parlia- 
ment, later  on  a  real  Parliamicnt  {Lih-fah  Yiian)  to 
meet  on  1st  May  instead  of  on  its  legal  date  in 
September.  Harassed  by  all  this  humiliation 
and  worry,  the  unhappy  man  as  a  last  shift  took 
ill,  a.nd  finally  died  of  uraemia  on  6th  June, 
leaving  behind  him  a  short,  dignified,  valedic- 
tory testament.  The  next  day  the  Vice-presi- 
dent Li  Yiian-hung  announced  his  succession  by 
law,  and  since  then  party  quarrels  seem  to  have 
largely  subsided.  Meanwhile  Twan  K'i-jwei  as 
Premier  has  formed  a  responsible  Cabinet  with 
Wu  T'ing-fang  as  Foreign  Minister ;  and  here  I 
close  (15th  February,  1917). 


GLOSSARY 


Abkhai.     Probably  a  Tartar  word 

meaning  "  sky,"  "  heaven." 
Ainos  =  Aino  word  Ainu,  "  men." 
The  ancient  Chinese  call  them 
"  shrimp   barbarians,"    and   as 
the  vulgar  word  for  "  shrimp  " 
is  hia-mi,  this  is  probably  the 
origin    of   the   Japanese   ye-bi, 
"  shrimp,"  and  yebi-su,  "shrimp 
people,"  or  Ainos. 
Ak'su  =  Turkish  "White  Water." 
Aktagh  (Turkish).   Apparently  the 
Chinese   Peh-shan,    or    "  white 
hills"  north  of  Harashar. 
Altai.     The  Kin-shan   or   "  Gold 
Mountains."     The  word  Altun, 
alchu,  aisin,  appears  in  many 
Tartar  forms. 
Amoy.     Local    pronunciation    of 

Hiamen,  "  gallery-gate." 
Annam  =  Chinese  "  pacifier  of 
the  south,"  a  title  granted  to 
the  rulers  of  Kiao-chi,  just  as 
Antung,  or  "  pacifier  of  the 
east,"  was  granted  to  the  rulers 
of  Corea. 
Ausgleich  =  German    for     "  that 

which  evens  out." 
Bilga  =  Turkish  "  wise,"  a  com- 
mon   appellation    of    reigning 
Khans  and  other  princes. 
Binh-thuan  =  Annamese  form  of 
Chinese     P'ing-  shun,     "run 
smooth  "  ;     but,    query,    which 
language    has    precedence,    as 
the  Chinese  seem  to  have  "  re- 
imported  "  the  local  pronuncia- 
tion in  the  form  Pin-t'ung. 
Bogdo  Khan.     I   suppose  this  is 
connected    with     the    Russian 
Bog,     "  God."      The     Chinese 
T'icn-tsz,  or  "  Son  of  Heaven," 
reappears     in     the     Hiung-nu 
Tengri-kudu,   the  Turkish  and 


Ouigour     Tengri-khagan,    the 
Arabic  "  Facfur  "  (Marco  Polo), 
the   Japanese    Tenshi    (Sama). 
Urga   is   called   Bogdo   Kuren, 
"  Holy  City." 
Bonze  =  Japanese     bo-dz,     being 
their     pronunciation      of     the 
modern  Chinese /ow-t'w,  which  in 
the  sixth  century  spelt  Buddh. 
Boxer.     Translation     of     K'iian, 
"  fist,"  or  ta-k'iian,  "  to  box." 
The  I-ho  K'ican  are  the  "  Patri- 
otic Harmony  Fists." 
Burma  =  Burmese  "  Bamma,"  or 
Miamma,   first  called  Mien  in 
Mongol      times.       An      earlier 
Chinese  name   was  P'iao,    the 
people  called  Byu  in  the  early 
Burmese  records. 
Cambalu  =  Khanbaligh,  "  Khan's 

citadel." 
Cambodgia,     The  word  Kam^put- 
ch'i  occurs  in  mediaeval  Chinese 
history  for  old  Fu-nam  country. 
This  last  dissyllabic  word  seems 
to   occur  in   Pnom-{penh),    the 
present  capital.     It  is  ciu-ious 
to  note  that  the  Chinese  name 
for    the    ruins    of    Angkor    is 
"  Temple  of  the  Ts'in  Iving," 
which  looks  as  though  the  visit 
of   Antoninus'    envoy   had   left 
some  tradition  in  the  land. 
Candareen  =  Malay    kondrin  ;    in 
the    Chinese    ports  =  10    cash 
(about),  or  f  Ju  of  a  silver  ounce. 
{Copper)  Cash  —  Portuguese  caixa, 
a    tin   coin   used    at    Malacca 
and    brought  from  India ;    cf. 
Sanskrit  Kdrshdpana,  "copper 
coins." 
Chagan Khan  =  Mongol "  White" 
Khan.     Chagan      Nor      (sea), 
Chagan  Kuren  (city). 


27 


387 


388 


GLOSSARY 


Ch'ang-sha  =  "  Long  Sands." 

Chef 00  —  CKi-fou,  a  very  ancient 
name  of  no  very  intelligible 
meaning  ; — "  sesame-net." 

Chemulpo  =  Corean  pronunciation 
of  Cantonese  Tsaimetpo,  or 
"mandarin"  Tsi-wuh-p'u, "  Por- 
terage Cove." 

Ch'eng-tu  =  "  Has  become  a  centre 
or  metropolis." 

Chmgnampo  —  (Rice)  -  steamer- 
south-cove,  (Corea). 

Chinkiang  =  chen-kiang,  "  rule  the 
river." 

Chit  (Hindoo  Chitthi),  a  word  in 
universal  use  in  India  and 
China  for  "  letter,"  "  memo.," 
"  I.O.U.,"  "  notice,"  etc. 

Chow,  or  chou,  in  such  words  as 
Wenchow,  Wu-chou,  is  simply 
"  flat-land "  or  "  plain,"  fol- 
lowed by  a  place-name,  descrip- 
tive or  original.  In  accepted 
names  like  Voochow  the  popular 
form  is  used  throughout  this 
book. 

Gh'ungk'ing  =  "  Double  Joy." 

Chusan  =  chou-shan,  "  boat-hill." 

Cianipa.  The  word  Cham  appears 
in  several  forms  of  the  Chinese 
name.  I  take  pa  to  mean 
"  country "  in  some  Hindoo 
tongue,  for  Singpa  in  Chinese 
means  "  Pan  jab,"  or  "land  of 
the  Sikhs,"  or  "  Singhs." 

Compradore  =  Portuguese  "  pur- 
chaser." The  business  facto- 
tum in  most  foreign  "  houses," 
banks,  consulates,  etc. 

Confucius  =  K'ung  fu-tsz,  "  the 
philosopher  K'ung,"  as  Meng 
fu-tsz  is  Mencius.  In  both 
cases  the  fu  can  be  omitted, 
and  "  Conscious "  or  "  Men- 
fucius  "  would  do  as  well.  Out 
of  the  sages  Tseng  and  Chwang 
we  might  create  Cincius,  San- 
cius. 
Coolie,  This  is  an  Indian  word, 
but  in  "  mandarin  "  fitted  with 
Chinese  characters  to  mean 
"  hard  work." 
Corea  =  Corean  Ko-ry&  (pro- 
nounced exactly  like  the  Eng- 
lish word),  being  the  local  form 
of  the  Chinese  Kao-li,  or  Kao- 
kou-li,  "  the  Kou-li  state  of  the 
Kao  clan." 


Cowloong  =  Cantonese  for  Kiu- 
lung,  "  Nine  Dragons." 

Daimy5  =  Japanese  pronunciation 
of  ta-m.ing,  or  "  great  name,"  a 
term  not  used  historically  or 
officially  in  China. 
Dalny  =  Russian  "  distant  "  (Ta- 
lien  Wan) ;  a  name  chosen  by 
the  Czar,  apparently  to  "hit 
off  "  Ta-lien  (Japanese  Z)airen). 

Dccima.  I  suppose  Japanese  De- 
shima,  "  go-out  island." 

Dolonor  =  Mongol  dolon  -  nor, 
"  Seven  Lakes." 

Dungans,  a  contraction  of  turi- 
gan  or  "  colonisers,"  descen- 
dants of  Arabs,  Persians,  etc., 
who  have  married  Tibetan  and 
Mongol  women. 

Ephthalites.  In  old  Chinese  Iptat, 
the  Corean  pronunciation  of 
which  is  still  Eptal, 

Esmok.  The  Burmese  have  a  way 
of  putting  a  final  k  at  the  end 
of  Chinese  words,  just  as  the 
Russians  put  a  z7iak  tverdi,  or 
"  hard  sign."  I  noticed  the 
sign-board  of  aChinaman  named 
Liu  Ts'ai,  at  Bhamo,  marked 
"  Lew  Ch'aik."  "  Sz-mao  "  ia 
an  impossible  mouthful  for  a 
Burmese. 

Fah-hien  =  "  Law's  manifesta- 
tion." 

Faifo  =  corrupt  Chinese  hwui- 
p'u,  or  hwei-an-p^u,  "  assembly 
shops,"  or  "  assembly-of-peaee- 
shop." 

Fiador  =  Portuguese  "  surety- 
man";  in  pidgin  English, 
"  hab  got  man  can  skewer." 

Foochow  =  "  Happy  region,"  lo- 
cally Houk-chiu,  or,  by  euphonic 
rule,  Uchiu. 

Formosa  —  Portuguese  "  beauti- 
ful," cf.  T'aiwan. 

Frank  appears  in  various  forms, 
Fu-lin,  Foh-lang-ki,  P'i-ling, 
etc.  (cf.  Ferenghi,  Frangkikos, 
etc.). 

Fusan  Chinese  Fu-shan,  "  Pot 
Hill,"  in  Corean  Pusan. 

Oayuk  —  Mongol  kuyuk,  "  clever." 

Oenghiz.  The  Hiung-nu  khans 
called  themselves  shen-yii,  which 
is  retrospectively  equivalent  to 
something  like  zen-ghi,  or  f^i'xi' ; 
possibly    there    may    be    some 


GLOSSARY 


389 


etymological  connection.  The 
title  appears  in  the  middle-agea 
word  Jenuye. 

Gialbo.  The  Cliinese  always  write 
this  Tibetan  title  tsan-p'u. 

Qodown  =  Malay  godong,  "  ware- 
house." 

Hainan  ~  Chinese  "  sea-south." 

Haiphong.  The  Chinese  hai-fang, 
or  "  coast  defence." 

Han.  A  proper  name  ;  rarely  has 
any  literary  meaning. 

Han  Wu  Ti  =  "  Han  Military  Em- 
peror," or  Divus  Martialis. 

Hankow  —  "  Han  (River)  Mouth." 

Hanoi  =  "  River  -  interior,"  the 
Annamese  (ha-noui)  form  of 
Ho-nei,  Cantonese  Ho-noi. 

Hideyoshi.  His  Chinese  name  is 
P'ing  Siu-kih. 

Hing-hwa  =  "  Start  civilisation." 

Hinterland  —  German  "  behind- 
land." 

Hiung-nu  =  "  Hiung  slaves." 

Hoang-ho  =  "  Yellow  River  "  : 
hwang  is  one  syllable,  and  not 
ho  +  ang. 

Hoihow  =  Cantonese  iovHai-k^ou, 
"  Sea  Mouth." 

Hong  =  Cantonese  pronunciation 
of  hang,  "  a  store  "  or  "  shop  "  ; 
but  the  word  is  little  used  except 
in  reference  to  foreign  "  houses," 
and  native  "  trade-guilds." 

Hung-tseh  =  "  Vast  Marsh." 

Hwai-kHng  —  "  Cherish  joy." 

IcK'ang  =  "  Should  be  glorious." 

III.  In  the  sixth  century  the 
Turkish  Khans  already  used  the 
style  Hi- Khan,  which  may  pos- 
sibly be  the  "  Ilkhans  "  of  Wes- 
tern writers. 

Irrawaddy  =  in  part  Arabic  wddi, 
"  a  river,"  but  I  cannot  say 
what  Irra  means.  The  Chinese 
used  to  confuse  the  Upper  Irra- 
waddy with  the  Upper  Yang- 
tsze,  or  Gold- sand  River. 

Isayk  Kul  =  "  Hot  Sea  "  in  some 
Tartar  tongues ;  Denghiz  Nor 
in  others  ;  the  Chinese  also  call 
it  Jeh-hai,  or  "  Hot  Sea." 

Japan  =  Chinese  Jih-pen,  "  sun's 
origin." 

Java.  From  ancient  times  known 
as  She-p^o,  or  Djaba ;  later 
Chao-wa,  usually  misprinted 
Kwa-wa . 


Jaxartea,  In  old-times  Chinese 
called  the  Yok-aliat. 

Junk.  Probably  shun,  the  Can- 
tonese form  of  ch'wan,  "  a 
ship,"  as  seen  in  the  Javanese 
jung. 

Kachyn  =  Burmese  "  wild  man." 
They  call  themselves  Singp'o,  or 
"  men." 

Kalgan  =  Mongol  "  Gate,"  called 
in  Chinese  Chang-kia  K'ou,  or 
"  Chang- family  Pass." 

Kalmuck  =  "  remaining  ones  "  ; 
those  of  the  Dzun  ("  right  "  or 
"east")  who  were  "left," 
when  Uriankhai  abandoned  the 
"  Wala,"  or  "  confederacy." 
Hence  Kalmuck,  Dzungar, 
Eleuth,  Oirat,  Wala,  Tvu-gut, 
are  all  much  the  same  thing. 
The  Boron  ("  left  "  or  "  west  ") 
tribes  fell  under  the  power  of 
the  Kirghis,  and  were  absorbed  ; 
hence  "  Borongar." 

Kanagawa  =  (I  suppose)  Japanese 
"  Golden  Stream." 

Karakitans  =  Turkish  for  "  Black 
Cathay  ans." 

Kazaka  ="  vagabond  "  ;  theKara- 
Kirghis  call  themselves  "  Kir- 
ghis "  ;  the  Eleuths  call  them 
"  Buruts  "  ;  the  Kazaks  call 
them  "  Kara-Kirghis."  The 
Kazaks,  or  Kirghis-Kazaks, 
speak  the  same  language  as  the 
Kara-Kirghis,  whom  they  de- 
test. The  Russian  word  (7oa- 
aack,  or  Kazak  (also  meaning 
"day  labourer"),  is  evidently 
the  Turkish  Kazdk. 

Kewkiang  =  "  Nine  Rivers." 

Kiao-chi  =  "  Parted  toes."  I  nay- 
self  was  struck  in  Annam  with 
the  extraordinary  "  apartness  " 
of  the  big  toe.  Possibly  our 
word  "  Cochin  (China)  "  comes 
from  this.  Another  name  is 
Kiao-chou,  "  Mutual  Plain." 

Kiao  Chou  (German)  =  "  Glue- 
plain." 

Kia-yiih  Kwan  =  "  Beautiful  Gem 
Pass." 

Kilung  =  "  Chicken  Hamper." 

Kirghia  =  (according  to  the  Chi- 
nese) "  red- faced  "  in  the  Kir- 
ghis tongue. 

Kobe  =  Japanese  "  Divine  -  por- 
tals." 


390 


GLOSSARY 


Kokand.  Until  Manchu  times 
usually  kno^vn  by  names  corre- 
sponding to  "  Ferghana." 

Kokonor  =  Mongol  "  Blue  Sea," 
or  "  Lake"  ;  cf.  Chagan. 

Kongmun  =  Cantonese  for  Kiang- 
men,  "  River  Gate." 

Koxinga  =  local  Kwok  -  sing  -  ya, 
"  State's-surname-sire." 

Kuhlai  =  Mongol  hObilai,  "  re- 
embodiment."  The  re -born 
hutukhtu,  or  saints,  are  in  their 
baby  stage  called  the  hubilkhan 
of  the  said  deceased  saints, 
lamas,  etc.,  e.g.  at  Lhassa, 
Shigatse,  Urga,  etc. 

Kmnchuk  =  Cantonese  Kom-chuk 
(Kan-chuh),  "  sweet  bamboo." 

Kunsan.  The  Corean  form  of 
K'iinshan,  "  Flock  Hill." 

Kuren  —  Mongol  "  city."  The 
Chinese  call  Urga  K'ulun. 

Kutlug  =  Turkish  "  happy." 

Lama  Miao  =  "  priest  temple." 
The  Tibetan  word  lama  (mean- 
ing "without  superior")  isnow 
adopted  into  northern  Chinese. 

Lao,  Yao,  Miao,  are  the  T'ang, 
S\ing,  and  modern  names  for 
the  ill-defined  wild  tribes  (not 
Shans,  and  not  Lolos  or  Tibe- 
tans). 

Lao-kai  =  Chinese  for  "Old  mar- 
ket-street." 

Lao-tsz,  or  Laocius.  Usually  trans- 
lated "  Old  Boy,"  but  really 
"  the  Philosopher  Lao,"  or"  the 
Old  Philosopher."  He  might 
be  called  "  Lafucius,"  if  it  were 
not  that  (in  his  case)  the  fu  is 
always  omitted ;  cf.  Confucius. 

Lao-wa  T'an  —  "  Crow  Rapid." 

Lappa.  Apparently  some  abori- 
ginal word  which  cannot  be 
written  in  Chinese  ;  neverthe- 
less the  two  words  Taipa  and 
Lappa  (Islands)  seem  to  mean 
"  rubbish-grounds." 

Lari  =  Tibetan/Aa-ri,  "god- moun- 
tain."    Compare  Lhassa. 

Lau  Vinh-phuc  =  Annamese  for 
Liu  Yung-fuh  (Cantonese  Lao 
Wingfuk),  formerly  Black  Flag 
Rebel  chief;  died  Dec,  1916. 

Likin  =  Chinese"  percentage,"  or 
"  per  mille." 

Likin,  likiien,  lit'ou  =  "  percent- 
age." 


Loess  =  German  loss,  "  loose." 

Lolo  =  No,  the  native  word  for 
themselves.  Like  the  Kirghia, 
they  have  black  and  white 
"  bones,"  or  castes. 

Loochoo.  The  word  first  appears 
in  A.D.  600  under  its  present 
form  Liu-k'iu,  which,  if  it  is 
anything  more  than  an  imita- 
tion of  native  words,  seems  to 
mean  "  string  of  beads,"  i.e. 
"  islands." 

Macao  =  Ma -ao,  or  Ma-ngao, 
"  Goddess'  Bight  "  ;  but  it  has 
many  other  Chinese  names  ;  the 
usual  one  is,  locally,  Ou-mun, 
"  Bight  Door,"  in  "  mandarin  " 
Ngaomen. 

Mace  —  Malay  mas,  from  Indian 
masha ;  in  China  ports  ^*jj  of  a 
tael  or  ten  candareens. 

Malay.  I  cannot  find  more  than 
one  trace  of  this  word  before 
the  Mulayu  of  Kublai's  time. 
The  Chinese  never  seem  to  have 
conceived  the  existence  of  a 
Malay  "  state  "  par  excellence. 

Mali-kha  and  Nmai-kha  are 
Kachyn  words  for  "Little"  and 
"Great "  kha  or  "  rivers."  Kha 
is  perhaps  allied  to  the  Chinese 
ho,  still  pronounced  ha  in  Corea 
and  Annam,  and  ka  in  Japan. 

Manchu.  According  to  the  Em- 
peror K'ien-limg,  this  word  is 
connected  with  the  Chushen 
tribe  of  Tunguses.  In  Con- 
fucius' time  they  were  called 
Sushen.  It  is  just  possible  that 
the  Buddhist  word  Mahdjus^ri 
may  have  been  adapted  or 
utilised,  as  the  earlier  Turks 
and  Tunguses  often  took  Bud- 
dhist names  in  compliment  to 
themselves  or  their  country. 

Mandarin  =  Portuguese  man- 
darim,  "  a  ruler." 

Mangu  —  Mongol  mongge,  "  per- 
severing." 

Manila  =  the  local  river  of  that 
name. 

Manipur.  Only  known  to  the 
Chinese  as  Kase  ;  the  Burmese 
say  Kath6  (th  as  in  EngUsh 
thin). 

Manzi.  The  Chinese  man-tsz  or 
"  Southern  barbarians,"  a  word 
I  have  myself  seen  in  a  procla- 


GLOSSARY 


391 


mation  issued  by  the  Tartar 
General  of  Canton,  referring 
haughtily  to  the  Cantonese. 

Masanpho  =  "  Horse-hill  Cove." 

Mei-ling  =  "  Plum  Ridge." 

Mengtsz  =  in  the  Shan  tongue, 
"  the  district  Tsz."  See  also 
Confucius. 

Mikado  =  Japanese  "  Imperial 
Gate,"  "  Sublime  Porte." 

Ming  —  Bright. 

Mokpo,  the  Corean  form  of  Muh- 
p'u,  "  Wood  Cove." 

Mongol  ="  silver  "  (perhaps). 
The  word  "  mungku  "  appears 
at  least  1,000  years  ago  as  a 
tribe  of  Turko-Tungusic  origin 
near  the  Shilka  River. 

Mukden  =  This  seems  to  be  a 
Tungusic  word  for  "  glorious 
capital."  Its  ancient  name  in 
Corean  times  was  Shen-yang. 

Nagasaki  =  Japanese  "  Long- 
point." 

Nanking  —  "  South  Metropolis." 

Nepaul.  The  oldest  Chinese  word 
is  Nip'olo  ;  then  Parpu  (Palpa), 
and  now  Kwo-r-k'a  (Goorkha). 

Newchivang  =  "  Cow-village." 

Ningpo  =  "  Calm  the  Waves." 

Novgorod  =  Russian,  "New- 
town." 

Niichens  =  a  supposed  native  word 
something  like"  Djurchi,"  mean- 
ing "  west  of  the  sea." 

Octroi  —  "  authorised  (charge),"  or 
"  grant." 

Odon-tala.  I  believe  this  word 
means  "  Thirteen  Seas,"  but  I 
have  forgotten  the  nimiber. 

Ogdai  =  Mongol  ogedei,  "  su- 
perior." 

Ordos.  This  word  first  appears 
600  years  ago.  Several  Mongol 
princes  still  have  their  ordo  in 
this  plateau,  which  possibly 
takes  its  name  from  the  fact. 
Cf.  Urga  and  Yamen. 

Ouigour.  Name  of  one  of  the 
T'ie-le  or  Tolos  tribes.  The 
Turkish  tablets  discovered  a 
generation  ago  never  use  the 
word  ;  only  the  word  Tolos, 
or  sometimes  "  Tokuz  Uguz," 
which  corresponds  to  the  Chi- 
nese "  Nine  Surnames  "  of  the 
Ouigoiu-s. 

Oxus.     In  old  Chinese  called  the 


Wei  or  Kwei,  the  Oech  of 
Zemarchus. 

Pakhoi  =  Cantonese  for  Peh-hai, 
"  North  Sea." 

Pamir.  This  word  appears  in 
Chinese  as  po-mit  in  the  eighth 
century  {pa-mir  according  to 
philological  rule). 

Pecul  =  a  Chinese  cwt.  of  133  J 
lbs. 

Peh-seh  =  "  100  colours,"  pro- 
bably some  Shan  word. 

Peking  —  "  North  Metropolis." 

Persia.  Always  called  Po-sz  (  = 
Pas,  or  Pars)  by  the  Chinese. 

Pescadores  =  Portuguese  pescador, 
"  fisher."  The  Chinese  name 
is  P'eng-hu,  "  Lake  P'eng." 

Philippines  —  Spanish  Filipinos, 
or  "  (King)  Philip's  (isles)." 

PHng-jang,  Corean  Pyong-yang  = 
"  even  soil  "  ;  a  very  ancient 
name. 

P'ing-shan  =  "  Flat  Mountain." 

Pirouz.     In  Chinese  Pi-lu-sz. 

Port  Arthur  (from  Captain  Arthur) 
in  Chinese  Lii-shun  K'ou,  or 
"  Port  Agreeable  to  Travellers  " 
— a  hopeful  name. 

Po-yang  =  "  Spread  out." 

Pulo  Condor.  The  Malay  piih, 
"  island,"  and theChinesejK'?i7i- 
lun;  but,  query,  which  lan- 
guage has  precedence. 

Quelpaert  (Dutchman's  name), 
called  Tan-lo,  or  Tamra,  by  the 
Chinese  and  Coreans. 

Samshu  =  Cantonese  sam-shiu 
(san-shao),  "  thrice  distilled." 
Mentioned  by  Dampier  220 
years  ago,  but  uncertain. 

San-tu  Ao  ="  Three  centres 
bight  "  (cf.  Macao). 

Shamien  =  "  Sand-stirface,"  pro- 
nounced in  Cantonese  Shamln. 
The  flat  islet  constructed  from 
the  rubbish  of  the  "  Thirteen 
Hongs  "  after  the  second  war, 
much  on  the  principle  that 
Decima  was  set  apart  for  the 
Dutch  in  Nagasaki  Creek. 

Sam-shui  =  "  Three  Rivers." 

Shan-haiKwan  ="  Mountain- sea 
Pass,"  or  "  Barrier." 

Shash'i  =  "  Sand  Market." 

Shimonoseki  =  Japanese  shimo-no- 
seki,  "  lower  pass,  or  barrier  of 
the  lower." 


392 


GLOSSARY 


Shroff  =  Hindoo  sarrdf :  the 
handler  of  dollars  and  other 
coins  in  most  large  foreign  con- 
cerns. "  To  shroff  "  has  come 
to  mean  to  "  test,"  or  to 
"  sample,"  or  "  taste." 

Si-an  Fu  =  "  West-peace  City," 
the  more  modern  name  of 
Ch'ang-an,  or  "  Lasting  Peace." 

Sikkim.  Known  to  the  Chinese 
by  an  imitation  of  the  native 
name  "  Demajong." 

Si-ning  =  "  West  Peace." 

Songchin,  or  Sydng-chin.  The 
Corean  form  of  Ch'eng-tsin, 
"  City  Ford." 

Soy  =  Japanese  sho-yu,  the  Chi- 
nese tsiang-yu,  or  "  sauce-oil." 

Strogonoff.  There  is  a  Russian 
word  strogi,  "  strict,"  but  I 
cannot  say  if  it  is  the  origin  of 
such  a  word  as  "  strictly  ruled 
ones  "  (genitive  plural). 

Sui.  The  founder  was  hereditary 
Duke  of  Sui.  Nearly  all  dyn- 
asties wore  "  territorial  "  by 
name,  until  the  "  Iron"  (Kitan), 
"  Golden  "  (Niichen),  "  Chief  " 
(Mongol),  "  Bright "  (Ming), 
and  "  Clear  "  (Manchus). 

Sumatra.  This  name  first  ap- 
pears in  Kublai's  time  as  one  of 
many  petty  states  in  the  island, 
which  never  had  a  Chinese 
name  as  a  whole. 

Sung.  A  proper  name  ;  no  mean- 
ing in  literature. 

Swatow.  Local  form  of  Shan- 
Vou,  "  end  of  the  Shan  (river)." 

Sz-ma  =  "  Rule  the  Horses" — 
Captain-general  ;  (a  Chinese 
double  "  surname "  or  family 
name). 

Tad.  The  Chinese  Hang  or 
"  ounce,"  said  to  be  the  Malay 
tail,  which  I  suppose  is  allied 
to  the  Siamese  tical  (pronounced 
tick-all).  Pere  Richard  says  it 
is  the  Hindoo  tola  through  the 
Malay  tahil;  cf.  Mace  and 
Gandareen. 

T'ai-pHng  =  "Great  Peace,"  or  by 
extension  "  Reign  of  Peace." 

T'ai-ivan,  or  Terrace  Bay  =  For- 
mosa. 

Takow  =  Ta-kou  (Cantonese  ta- 
kao),  "  beat  dogs,"  probably  a 
corrupted  Formosan  word. 


Taku  =  "  Great  Reach." 

Ta-lien  Wan  =  "  Purse  Bay." 
Often  written  with  other  char- 
acters signifying  "  Great  Unity 
Bay."     Cf.  Dalny. 

T'ang.  A  proper  name;  no 
meaning  in  literature. 

Tangut.  This  word  does  not 
occur  often  in  Chinese.  When 
it  does,  it  seems  to  refer  to  a 
common  language,  including  the 
civilised  Tibetans  and  the  wan- 
dering tribes  of  that  race.  So 
far,  I  have  not  come  across  any 
Chinese  use  of  the  word  anterior 
to  the  Manchu  dynasty.  There 
were  Tang-ch'ang  and  Tang- 
hiang  tribes  in  Kan  Suh,  but 
Marco  Polo's  Tangut  is  never 
called  anything  except  Hia,  or 
West  Hia,  being  the  whole 
Ning-hia  region  of  to-day. 

Tartar.  From  ancient  times  the 
word  Tatan,  tata,  tata-r,  or 
ta-tsz,  has  been  used  for  loosely- 
defined  tribes  between  the  Turks 
and  Tunguses.  The  word  ta- 
tsz  is  still  used  jocularly  by  the 
pure  Chinese  in  the  vague  sense 
of  our  word  "  Tartar." 

Tashkend.  Turkish  tos/t,  "  stone" ; 
Persian  kand,  kent,  "  city." 
The  oldest  Chinese  name  is 
Chech  or  Djedj,  in  imitation  of 
the  ancient  native  word  Djadj, 
corrupted  by  the  Turks  to  Task. 
The  Chinese  also  call  it  Shih' 
ch^eng,  or  "  stone  city." 

Tashkurgan  =  Turkish  "  stone- 
tower."  Sir  Aurel  Stein  thinks 
Ptolemy's  "  Stone  Tower," 
however,  must  be  at  or  near 
Daraut-Kurgan. 

Ta-tsien  Lu  =  "  Strike  arrow 
stove,"  a  meaningless  imita- 
tion of  Tarsando  (Tib.). 

Ta-ts'in  =  "  Great  Ts'in,"  or,  in 
the  older  form,  Dziin,  which  is 
probably  Syr  or  Syria.  The 
later  Chinese  form  Sz-li  occurs 
in  reference  to  the  inhabitants 
of  the  Syro-Persian  region. 

Tea  =  local  pronunciation  te.  It 
is  pronounced  ta  in  Foochow, 
and  tsha  in  most  parts.  The 
Russian  ichai  is  simply  the 
Pekingese  ch'a-ye,  "  tea-leaf." 

Tibet.     The   Chinese   first   called 


GLOSSARY 


393 


the  civilised  Tibetans  fnpo, 
usually  mispronounced  Vufan. 
The  second  syllable  is  bod  (what 
the  Tibetans  call  themselves) 
=  Tibetan,  sKod-Bod,  or  sTod 
Bod,  pronounced  To  Bhot,  and 
meaning  "  Upper-Bod."  Bodgul 
or  gyul  means  "Land  of 
Bod." 

THen-shan.  "  Heaven  Mountains  " 
=  the  Tengri  Tagh  of  the  Tar- 
tars.    See  also  Bogdo. 

Tientsin  =  "  Heavenly  Ford  "  ;  a 
modern  name. 

Ting-hai  =  "  Settle  the  Sea." 

Toba  =  "  born  in  the  sheets," 
but  the  Chinese  give  other 
fanciful  meanings  for  this  Tun- 
gusic  word. 

Tokyo.  The  Chinese  words  Tung- 
king,  "  eastern  capital." 

Tonquin.  The  Chinese  words 
Tung-king,  "  eastern  capital." 

Taaidam.  Said  to  mean  "  marsh  " 
in  some  local  tongue. 

TsHng  =  Clear. 

Ts'in-wang  Tao  =  "  Prince  of 
Ts'in's  Island,"  probably  allud- 
ing to  the  conquest  of  Corea  by 
the  T'ang  Emperor  Li  Shi-min, 
who  passed  that  way  and  had 
borne  that  title  (seventh  cen- 
tury). 

Tsung  -  li  Yamen  =  "  General- 
management  Office,"  short  for 
the  fiill  title  "  General-manage- 
ment of  Different  Countries' 
Affairs  Office"  ; — Foreign  Office. 
After  various  changes,  it  is  now 
called  the  Wai-kiao  Pu  or 
"  Foreign  Relations  Board." 

Tsushima  (pronounced  almost  in 
two  syllables  like  TzhiHia)  is 
written  by  the  ancient  Chinese 
Tui-ma,  or  "  Facing  Horses." 
I  cannot  say  which  language 
gave  the  original  sounds. 

T'umu  —  "  Earth  Tree."  I  have 
twice  been  there. 

Tunghwan  =  "  East  Sedge." 

Tung-Ving  =  "  Cave  Court,"  pro- 
bably alluding  to  the  royal 
centre  of  the  aboriginal  races. 

Tunguz,  Tunguses,  generally  sup- 
posed to  be  a  term  of  Russian 
origin  derived  from  Tung-hu  or 
"  Eastern  Tartars  "  ;  but  the 
point  is  not  certain. 


Turk  =  Turkish  word  "  liirk,"  or 
"  helmet,"  from  the  shape  of  a 
mountain  in  their  earliest  habi- 
tat. 

Tycoon  or  Shogun.  The  first  is 
the  Japanese  way  of  pronounc- 
ing the  Chinese  words  Ta-kiin 
or  T'ai-kun,  a  term,  like  the 
corresponding  Corean  Tai-tvon- 
kun,  applied  to  the  second  per- 
sonage in  the  state.  The  second 
is  simply  the  Chinese  tsiang- 
kiln,  or  "  generalissimo,"  being 
the  word  "  Imperator  "  in  its 
original  miUtary  significance. 
Compare  soy. 

Uliassutai.  This  seems  to  be  the 
Chinese  word  t'ai,  "  post- sta- 
tion," added  to  the  ^Mongol  word 
usu;  Ulia-usu,  the  "River"  Ulia. 

Urga,  said  to  come  from  orgo,  a 
palace  ;   but  see  Ordos. 

Uriangkha.  I  do  not  know  if  this 
is  the  Eleuth  tribe  mentioned 
luider  "  Kalmuck,"  but  there 
are  still  Eleuth  settlements  in 
Tsitsihar  and  Kokonor  as  well 
as  in  Hi.  In  Kublai's  time  this 
term  was  applied  to  Nayen's 
appanage  of  Manchuria,  from 
the  Amur  to  Corea. 

Vladivostock  =  Russian  "  rule  the 
east." 

Wangpoo  ="  Yellow  Cove," 
meaning  the  Shanghai  River. 
The  same  sotmd  signifies  "  Yel- 
low Depot,"  or  Whampoa  near 
Canton. 

Wei  =  state  or  dynasty.  A  proper 
name;  no  meaning  in  literature. 

Wei-hai  Wei  =  "  Awe-the-sea  Gar- 
rison." 

Wei  River  of  Si-an  Fu,  not  to  be 
confused  with  the  Wei  River  of 
Wei-hwei  Fu  (written  differ- 
ently). The  first- named  is  dubi- 
ously mentioned  3,000  years  ago 
as  being  either  clear  or  muddy, 
and  the  intellectuels  disputed 
for  2,000  years  which  of  the  two 
it  was ;  until  the  Manchu  Em- 
peror K'ien-lung  ordered  the 
learned  Viceroy  of  Kan  Suh  to 
go  to  the  source  in  the  desert, 
and  follow  the  stream  person- 
ally all  the  way  down  to  its 
junction  with  the  King,  so  as 
to  close  the  question  for  ever. 


394 


GLOSSARY 


Whampoa  =  Wongpou,  "  Yellow 
Quays,"  the  Cantonese  form  of 
Hwang-p'u. 

Wonsan  —  Chinese  Yiian-ahan,  or 
Ngiian-alian,  "  Head  Hill  "  ;  in 
Japanese  Genzan. 

Wo-nu  =  "  Japanese  slaves."  Cf. 
Hiung-nu. 

Wu-hu  =  "  Jvmgle  Lake." 

Yamen  =  Chinese  "  gate  of  the 
ya."  The  ya  was  first  "  a 
flag  "  ;  then  the  entrance  to 
the  camp-gate  where  the  flag 
was  planted ;  then  "  head- 
quarters"  ;  then  "nomad 
court,"  or  "  ordo."  Yamen 
now  means  "  public  residence," 
or  "  office."     Cf.  Urga. 

Yang-tsze  =  the  "  philosopher 
Yang  "  :    the  old  name  for  the 


modern  salt  dep6t  of  Icheng 
near  Chinkiang,  and  of  the 
Great  River  in  that  vicinity,  or 
a  ford  of  it.  The  usual  trans- 
lation "Son  of  the  Ocean" 
seems  incorrect. 

Yedo  =  Japanese  "  River-door." 

Yin  Shan  ="  Sombre"  or  "hy- 
perborean "  mountains. 

Yiian-kung  P'u  =  "  Duke  Yiian's 
Cove." 

Zanzibar.  This  word  seems  to 
occur  in  the  Chinese  ts'etig  or 
Dzang,  "  black  slaves "  from 
which  place  were  imported  by 
the  Arabs.  As  to  bar,  see  the 
remarks  on  Ciampa,  Lappa, 
Singpa,  etc. 

Zuider  Zee  =  Dutch  for  "  South 
Sea." 


NoTK — In  Giles'  Anglo-Chinese  Dictionary  (first  edition)  I  have 
given  the  pronunciation  in  eight  dialects  (also  in  Corean,  Japanese, 
and  Annamese)  of  every  important  Chinese  word.  In  the  Philological 
Essay  contributed  to  the  same  work,  I  have  explained  the  etymo- 
logical rules  involved.  I  have  not  yet  seen  the  later  edition  of  Giles' 
dictionary.  For  most  of  the  Mongol  words  I  am  indebted  to  Mr. 
Zach,  of  the  Foreign  Customs  in  China.  Pere  Richard's  Geography 
is  responsible  for  the  Indo-Malay  coin  words,  and  Mr.  L,  C,  Waddell 
for  one  or  two  Tibetan  meanings. 

Although  the  paragraphs  on  Corean  and  Formosan  trade  have  been 
expunged  from  this  edition,  the  Corean  and  Formosan  place-names 
still  appear  in  this  Glossary. 


INDEX 


Abascia  (see  Abyssinia) 

Abbassides,  32 

Abdeli,  68  (see  Ephthalites) 

Abdications,  304,  373 

Abkhai,  39,  387 

Aboriginal  officials,  8 

Aborigines,  7,  183  (see  Tribes) 

Abu  Said,  54,  67 

Abyssinia,  75 

Accadian  origin,  supposed,  4 

Acheen,  57,  80,  83,  92 

Achmac,  241 

Actors,  183 

Aden,  50,  75,  80,  83 

Admiralty,  Chinese,  211 

Adults,  199 

Advance  of  Chinese,  6 

Advisory  Committee,  145 

—  Councils,  377,  380,  382 

^rarium,  209 

Aeroplanes,  86 

Affghanistan,  22,  65,  365 

Afranghi,  127  (see  Franks) 

Africa,  36,  57,  58,  71 

Agricultural  implements,  48 

Aigun,  103,  138,  174 

Ainos,  127,  387 

Ainscough,  M.  T.,  60 

Aintab,  83 

Aisie,  106 

Aksu,  Ak-8u,  64,  83,  387 

Aktagh,  66 

Akwei,  General,  304 

Alans,  67,  134 

Alashan  Mountains,  235 

Albazin,  103,  104,  138 

"  Albazins,"  306 

Albumen  trade,  149 

Alchuk,  84 

Aleppo,  83 

Alexander  the  Great,  21 

Alexander  III,  104 

Alexandria,  48 

Almalik,  72,  77,  78  {see  Hi) 


Alompra  of  Burma,  139 
Altai,  136,  137,  180,  387 
Altyn  Khan,  137,  138 
Alum,  156 

Amaral,  Governor  do,  114 
America,  111,  341,  378,  383 

—  Chinese  in,  40,  112 
American  immigration  laws,  112 

—  parallels,  20 

—  syndicates,  1 1 

—  tirade,  111,  112,  113,  146,  147, 
166,  170 

Amherst,  Lord,  97 

Amoy,  74,  79,  90,  96,  98,  156,  387 

—  emigrants,  91 

—  trade,  148,  156 
Amur,  103,  132,  138 
Ananas  sativus,  153 
Ancestral  Worship,  287,  294,  298, 

302,  373 
Ancient  remains,  4,  31,  55,  76,  77, 

131 
Andamans,  80 
Andijan,  83 
Andrab,  64 
Andrade,  88 
Andrea,  78 

An  Hwei,  229,  231,  253 
Aniseed,  152 
An-k'ing  Fu,  252 
Armals  of  Confucius,  17,  345 
Annam,  21,  24,  29,  31,  32,  35,  37, 

40,  60,  107,  197,  387 

—  annexed,  29,  32 

—  conquered,  35,  193 

—  independent  or  tributary,   32, 
33,  37 

—  French  in,  32,  167 
Annamese,  21,  49,  85 

—  language,  360 
Ansi,  59,  69 
Antimony,  161 
Antioch,  52,  83 
Antiochia  Margiana,  61 


395 


896 


INDEX 


Antiquities  (aee  Ancient  Remains) 

Antoninus,  23,  48,  50,  52,  62,  387 

An-tun,  23,  48,  50 

Antung,  174 

An  Yih,  240 

Aphrodisiacs,  289 

Arab  conquests,  65 

—  traders,  32,  54 

Arabia,  33,  36,  37,  54,  63,  67,  68, 

71,  92 
Arabs,  33,  49,  53,  68,  88,  300 
Archery,  258,  259 
Areas  of  China,  2 

—  of  trade  (see  Trade) 
Argun,  River,  85 
Ariga,  Mr.,  382 
Armenia,  40,  73,  135 

Armies,  Chinese,  42,  80,  210,  25G- 

270,  370 
Arms,  trade  in,  110  (sec  Cannon) 
Arrian,  62 
Arrows,  47 
Arsacides,  50 
Arsenals,  211 
Art,  132 

Artesian  wells,  231 
Artillery  (see  Cannon) 
Aru,  80 

Aryans,  19,  47,  134 
Asbestos,  49 

Asiatic  Co.  (German),  109 
Astrakhan,  77 
Astrology,  17 
Astronomy,  95,  106 
Atlas  of  Yang-tsze,  12 
Attila,  21,  128 
Augustan  era,  33 
Augustines,  90 
Auli6-ata,  64 
Aurelian,  51 
Austin,  jurist,  309 
Austro-Hungary,  119,  383 
Autochthones,  184 
Ava,  83 
Avars,  128,  130 

—  the  word,  131 
Awakening  of  China,  365 
Ayuthia,  140 

Azes,  135  (see  Alans) 
Azov,  77 

Babel,  Tower  of,  6 
Baber,  E.  C,  8 
Babylon,  4,  50,  61 
Babylonian  theories,  4,  348 
"Babylonian"  women,  43,  238 
Back  River,  160 
Bacot,  M.  Jacques,  9,  82 


Bactria,  22,  47,  134 

Bactrians,  63 

Badakshan,  60,  74,  79,  81 

Bagdad,  53,  71,  77,  83 

Baghdur  Khan,  20,  46 

Baikal,  31,  131,  132,  138 

Baikoff,  103 

Balkash,  66,  73,  74,  77,  132,  139 

Balkh,  64,  68,  73,  83 

Balti,  32 

Bamboo,  edible,  157 

Bamian,  64 

Banner  system,  103,  195,  208,  256, 

272 
Bannu,  63 
Bantam,  75,  92 
Baotu,  82,  84,  169,  235 
Barbarians,  7,  9,  70,  118,  183,  184, 

212,  234 
Barbers,  183 
Barca,  73 
Barkul,  59 
Bashkirs,  136 
Basman,  75 
Basra,  50,  61,  71 
Batavia,  75,  92 
Bathang,  13 
Batu  Khan,  73 
Bayen,  General,  75,  197 
Bayen-Kara,  82 
Bean-cake,    bean- oil,  beans,   148, 

166-70 
Beer,  46 
Beggars,  283 
Behar,  65 
Belgiiun,  113,  148 
Bell  of  Antermony,  36 
Benedict  XII.,  78 
Benevolences,  45,  204,  230,  239 
Bengal,  80 
Beni  Asfar,  127 
Bentham,  Jeremy,  314 
Berbera,  71 
Beresov,  135 
Beyla,  83 
Bhamo,  62,  74,  83,  147,  174,  366, 

388 

—  trade,  74 
Bharam,  54 
Bicycles,  147 
Bink-thtian,  70,  79,  387 
Bird-Bishop,  Mrs.,  9 
Birds'  nests,  289 
Bismarck,  110 

Black  dwarfs,  52,  57 

—  Flags,  107,  390 

—  River  (Mongolia),  1 1 1 
(Tonquin),  21 


INDEX 


397 


Black  Salt  Wella,  234 

Blagoveschtschensk,  103 

Boards  at  Peking,  178,  180,  186, 

210,   215,   230,   246,   308,    312, 

341,  380,  393 
Bocca  Tigris  (see  Bogue) 
Bock,  Mr.  Carl,  120 
Boehmeria  nivea,  163 
Bogdo  Khan,  126,  387 
Bogue,  The,  112 
Bokhara,  31,  68,  72,  81,  83,  283, 

286 

—  Little,  81 
Bombay,  75 

Bone  inscriptions,  343 
Bones,  desert,  86 
Bonham,  Governor,  98 
Bonnet,  N.  de,  78 
Bonzes,  66,  76,  304,  387 
Book  of  History,  42 
"  Books"  of  bamboo,  etc.,  344 
Books,  burning  of,  346 
Borneo,  32,  36,  57,  71,  77,  92 

—  oil,  146 

Boundaries,  natural,  2 
Bouvet,  106 

"Boxer"  Indemnity,  112 
"Boxers,"   37,  40,   99,   103,   105, 

109,    117,    118,    154,    167,    169, 
212,   235,   255,   266,   303,    304, 
340,  369,  387 
"  Boxers"  (earliest),  35 

—  (later),  37,40,41,  303 

—  (midway),  41,  304 
"Boys,"  277 
Branco  St.,  114,  151 
Brava,  80 
Bravery,  273 
Braves,  263 
Brazil,  120,  148,  297 
Bretschneider,  Dr.  E.,  15,  19,  79, 

134 
Brick  inscriptions,  344,  350 

—  tea,  163,  169 
Brigade  generals,  260 
British  interests,  3  {see  English) 
Buddhism,  22,   63,   65,  282,  296, 

305,  330,  339 
Buddhist  pilgrims,  51,  62,  65 
Budget,  205,  207,  210,  219 
Buffaloes,  45 
Bukur,  55 
Bulgars,  134 

BuUion,  66,  57,  154,  216,  248,  283 
Burma,  8,  13,  22,  35,  37,  40,  62, 

74,  99,  100,  139,  145,  172,  197, 

304,  387 

—  Convention,  109 


Burma  Expedition,  99,  366 
Burmese,  43,  47 

—  races,  8 
Buruts  (see  Kirghis) 
Butter,  234 

Button  rank,  186,  260 

Byu,  387 

Byzantines,  66  (see  Greeks) 

Cabinet  Council,  246 

Cadastral  lands,  190,  253 

Cail,  75,  80 

Cairo,  83 

Calatu,  75 

Calcutta,  63,  72,  83,  149 

Calendar,  73,  373 

CaUcut,  76,  80 

Caliphs,  31,  70 

Cambalu,  79,  303,  387 

Cambay  or  Cambaia,  71,  75 

Cambodgia,  37,  51,  79,  387 

Camels,  46,  84,  169 

Camels'  wool,  167 

Camphor,  54,  56 

Campichu,  74  (see  Kan-chou  Fu) 

Camul  (see  Hami) 

Canal,  Grand,  11,  208,  239,  245 

Canals,  237,  241 

Canfu,  32,  56,  72,  75 

Cannibalism,  289 

Cannon,  88,  89,  95,  258 

Cansay,  78  (see  Kinsai) 

Canton,  6,  10,  23,  48,  49,  54-6, 
57,  65,  67,  71,  77,  87,  94,  96, 
98,  106,  111,  120,  224,  258 

—  Arabs  at,  32,  54,  67 

—  decline,  55,  71 

—  dialect,  26,  358 

—  factories,  94,  106,  109,  141 

—  mosque,  83 

—  River,  62,  222 

—  trade,  154 

Cantonese,  20,  30,  274,  285 
Capitals  of  China,  4,   10,  27,  34, 

37,  52,  65,  70  (see  Peking, 
Nanking,  Hangchow,  Si-an  Fu, 
etc.) 

Capitao  do  Mar,  88 

Carpi  ni,  77 

Carthaginians,  48 

Carts,  66,  73,  131  (see  Waggons) 

"  Cash,"  copper,  56,  206,  213,  291 

Caspian,  67 

Cassia,  152 

Cassini  Convention,  105,  151,  366 

Caste,  45,  183,  258,  272,  339,  357 

Catchment  areas,  6,  13 

Catchpoole,  90 


398 


INDEX 


Cathay,  79 

Cathayans,  33  (see  Kitans) 

Cathedral  at  Peking,  107 

"  Catherines,"  Chinese,  20,  31,  46, 

323 
Cattle  trade,  56,  84,  170 
Catulphus,  67 
Caucasus,  67 
Cavalry,  262 
Cave-dwellers,  9 
Celestial  Mountains,  59 
Census,  193-204 
Central  Kingdom,  4,  343 
Ceylon,  36,  51,  54,  63,  71,  77,  80, 

83,  146  (see  Tea) 
Chagan  Khan,  126,  387 

—  Kuren,  82,  387 
Chambers  of  Commerce,  383 
Ch'ang-an,  23,  392  (see  Si-an  Fu) 
Chang   Chi-tung,    104,    185,    187, 

241,  266,  268,  369 
Chang-chou  Fu,  74,  96,   197  (see 

Zaitun) 
Ch'ang-ch'un,  84 
Chang  Hiin,  251,  378,  379 
Chang  Kien,  242 
Chang  K'ien,  47,  61,  64 
Ch'ang-lu  salt,  238 
Ch'ang-sha  (and  Fu),  22,  61,  161, 

387 
Chao   Confederation,   32,    69   (see 

Nan-chao) 
Chao-k'ing  (Shiu-heng),  87,  88 
Chaosien,  21,  29  (see  Corea) 
Chappedelaine,  Pere,  107 
Charing  Nor,  10,  69 
Charlemagne,  27 
Charles,  iSing  of  Bumania,  121 
Chavaimes,  Professor,  17,  65,  77, 

132 
Chefoo,  98,  247,  387 

—  Convention,  100,  142 

—  trade,  169,  175 
ChehKiang,  19,  56,  197,  248,  254 

—  salt,  226 
Chemulpo,  387 
Ch'en  dynasty,  27 
Chen-shou-sh'i,  261 
Cheng  Ho,  58,  79 

Ch'eng-tu  (and  Fu),  12,  174,  202, 

388 
Chesterfield,  Lord,  295 
Chevalier,  Pere,  12 
Ch'ih-feng,  175 
ChihLi,  19,  34,  180,239 
Chikin-talas,  74  (see  Talas) 
Children,  286-8 
Chili-Peru  war,  120 


China,  1,  191 

—  divided,   24,   27,   51,   55,    128, 
193,  257,  328,  339 

—  Early,  4-6,  313 

—  Inland  Mission,  99 

—  Old,  20,  23,  328  (see  Old) 

—  Proper,  1 

—  United,  18,  28,  33,  35,  193,  198, 
240,  321,  330,  346 

China's     Sorrow,     11,     236     (see 

Yellow  River) 
Chin-cheo,  90  (see  Ts'iian-chou) 
Chinese  abroad,  40,  94,  118 

—  banners,  256 

—  designations  for  (see  National) 

—  language,  7,  343-64 

—  legations,  100,  118 

—  missions,  99,  118 

—  shipping,  150,  157,  160 
Chinese  Characteristics,  271 
Ching,  Commander,  R.N.,  270 
Chingnampo,  388 
Chinkiang,  98,  165,  226,  388 

—  trade,  165 

"  Chits,"  276,  388 

ChoUn-uye,  85 

Chosen,    or    Chaosien,     116    (see 

Corea) 
Chou  cities,  15,  388 
Chou  dynasty.  Early,  18,  330 

Tungusic,  27 

Chou-ts'un,  175 

Chu-an  Hwei,  382 

Chu,    Kiang    or    River,     14    (sec 

West  River) 
Ch'u,  Kingdom,  5,  35,  160,  222 
Chukchis,  132 
Ch'un,  Prince,  junior,  268,  371 

senior,  211 

Ch'unghou,  104 
Chungking,  9,  158,  248,  388 
Ch'ungming  Is.,  227 
Chusan  Is.,  96,  388 
Chuvashes,  136 
Chu  Yiian-chang,  35 
Ciampa,  32,  37,  75,  77,  388 
Cigarettes,  46,  147 
Circumcision,  298 
City  gates,  264  (see  Gates) 

—  walls,  317 
Civil  Law,  311 
Civilian  officers,  261,  318 
Clarke,  Rev.  S.,  10 
Classics,  346 

Clavijo,  78 

Clerks,  Law,  338,  341  (see  Secre- 
taries) 
Clippers,  157 


INDEX 


899 


Clothing  trade,  147 
Coal,  80,  167,  1G8 
Coast  districts,  6 

—  trade,  144,  160 
Cobdo,  81,  137 
Cochin,  80 

Cochin-China,    23,    57,    107,    318 

(see  Indo- China) 
Codes,  ancient,  314,  32G,  334,  339 

—  modern,  335,  337,  341 
Coffee,  92 

Co-hong  system.  111,  141  (see 
"  Hongs") 

Coilon,  75  {see  Quilon) 

Colleges  {see  Schools,  Universities) 

Cologan,  Sen.,  118 

Colonies,  21 

Comari,  75 

Compass,  60,  86 

Compradores,  141,  255,  276,  388 

Concubines,  284,  300 

Condor,  79  {see  Kunlun) 

Confucian  era,  43,  47 

Confucius,  17,  111,  295,  301,  309, 
319,  345,  385,  388 

Confucius  LXXVI.,  Duke,  385 

Confucius'  History,  17  (see  An- 
nals) 

Conquests  of  Han  Wu  Ti  (see 
Wu  Ti) 

Conservatism,  164,  222,  225,  232 

Constantinople,  67 

Constitutions,  370,  372,  375,  380 

Consular  jurisdiction,  99  («ee 
Extraterritoriality) 

Consuls,  status,  189 

—  Chinese,  90 
Contract  law,  312 

Coolie  business,  94,  118,  120,  170, 

388 
Copper,  44,  56,  206,  211,  219 

—  coins,  43,  291  {see  "  Cash  ") 

—  standard,  143 
Cordier,  Prof.  H.,  58,  96 
Corea,    14,   21-3,   29,   33,   39,   47, 

53,  116,  131,  165,  264,  286,  388 

—  Americans  in,  113 

—  conquests,  over- runnings,  re- 
ductions of,  21,  22,  29,  30,  35. 
39,  53,  192 

—  language,  26,  360 

—  Italians  in,  119 

—  "Imperial,"  116,  121,  171 

—  Japanese  province,  171 

—  opening  of,  170,  171,  365 

—  Tripartite,  192 

—  the  word,  388 
Corean  general,  32 


Corean  trade,  65 

—  words,  places,  etc.  {passim  in 
Glossary) 

Cormos,  75  (see  Hormuz) 
Cosmas,  Alex.,  63 
Cosmetics,  147 
Cossacks,  103,  136,  389 
Cotton,  45,  85,  157,  159,  160,  167, 
173 

—  American,  166,  170 

—  fabrics,  49,  142,  145,  152,  155 

—  yarns,  145,  159,  168  (see  Yarns) 
Courbet,  Admiral,  270 

Court,  the,  177 
Courts  of  Law,  341 
Cowloong,  388  {see  Kowloong) 
Cowries,  43 
Crimean  War,  104 
Cronstadt,  169 
Csoma,  134 
Cuba,  118 

Cultivation,  195,  198 
Currency,   43,   47,    56,    143,   213, 
251,  255,  291  (see  Exchange) 

—  fixed,  217 
Cushing,  Mr.,  140 
Customary  Law,  312,  321 
Customs  (haVjits),  299,  312 

—  (Department  of  State),  254 

—  duties,  43,  52,  55,  70,  90,  144, 
205 

—  Foreign,  142,  144,  154,  158,  160, 
170,  174,  213,  240 

—  Native,  249 

—  special,  167,  174 
Czars,  136,  137,  165 
Czikami,  Baron,  119 

Dagroian,  75 

Daimyo,  the  word,  388 

Dairen,  Dalny,  or  Ta-lien  (Wan), 

166,  388 
Dalai  Lama,  371,  383 
Damascus,  83 
Dane,  Sir  R.,   14,   181,  214,  228, 

230,  235,  242,  252,  380 
Danish  trade,  148 
Daraut-Kurgan,  62,  392 
Darchendo,     Tarsando,     or     Ta- 

tsien-lu,  174,  392 
Darg6  tribes,  13 
Darjiling,  174 
Dates  (see  Era,  Calendar) 
Daughters,  286 
Day,  the  Chinese,  290 
Decima,  92,  388,  391 
Deers'  horns,  289 
DeU,  Delly,  75 


400 


INDEX 


Demajong,  392 
Democracy,  181-2,  368 
Demotic  script,  346 
Demiiark,  117 
Derbend,  64,  73 
Desert,  80,  86,  235 

—  routes,  61 
Deveria,  Gabriel,  72,  83 
Dialects,  6,  26,  156,  261,  272,  351 - 

364  (see  Language) 
Diaz,  President  Porfirio,  120 
Dictionaries,  347 
Dir,  63 

Dismemberment  of  China,  371 
Divisions,  territorial,  5,  187,  222 
Dizabul,  Khan,  66 
Djafar  or  Dufar,  71,  75 
Dogana,  74  (see  Tokhara) 
Dollars,  213,  220 
D'OUone  mission,  9 
Dolonor,   82,   84,   388  (see  Lama 

Miao) 
Domiciles,  257 
Dominicans,  118,  298 
Dowagers,  248,  268,  371,  378  (see 

Empress) 
Draco,  Chinese,  317 
Drainage  areas,  13,  168 
Drichu,  river,  13  (see  Yang-tsze) 
Drink,  46,  165,  273,  288,  300 
Drugs,  49,  82,  159 
Dufar  (see  Djafar) 
Dupuis,  Jean,  85,  107 
Dutch,    36,     89,    91-3,    106    (see 

Holland) 

—  colonies,  94,  142 

—  engineers,  11,  228 

—  in  Japan,  87 
Duties,  57  (see  Customs) 
Duumvirate,  ancient,  17 
Dwarfs,  52 

Dyes,  49 

—  aniline,  147 
Dykes,  11,  208 

Dynasties,  tables  of,   18,   24,   27, 
38,  392 

—  two  greatest,  30 

—  Tartar,  20,  27 

—  Tibetan,  28 
Dzaring  (see  Charing) 
Dzungaria,  40,  389  (see  Sungaria) 

East  India  Co.,  96,  141 

Swedish,  120  (see  Asiatic) 

"  Eating  "  provinces,  23 

Eclipses,  95 

Education,  183,  208,  345 

—  female,  286,  356 


Edward  I.,  45 

Egg  trade,  149 

Egypt,  56 

Eighteen  Provinces,  1,  8,  23,  35 

Ektagh,  Ektel,  66 

Electricity,  86,  159,  211,  232 

Elgin,  Lord,  115 

EUzabeth,  Queen,  95 

El  Riim,  126  (see  "  Romania  ") 

Emigration,  40,  74,  89,  112,  118, 

119,  120,  156 
Emil,  73 
Emperor,  97,  177,  211,  265,  299, 

304,  308,  341,  352 

—  the  First,  18  (see  First) 

—  the  word  (character),  320 

—  worship,  301,  310 

"  Emperor"  (of  1916),  384 

—  (of  Corea),  116,  121 
Empire,  177 
Empress-Dowager,    20,    46,    165, 

211,   243,   248,   261,   266,   268, 

299,  308,  341,  352,  368,  371,  378 

(see  Dowagers) 
Engineering  trade,  159 
Engineers,  11  (see  Dutch) 
EngUsh,  36,  72,  95,  99-102,  141-4 

(see  British) 

—  earliest,  95 

—  in  Manila,  92 

—  interests,  3 

EphthaUtes,  64,  67,  68,  131,  132, 
134,  388  (see  Indo-Scytliians) 

Eptat  (see  AbdeU  and  last) 

Ertogrul,  s.s.,  121 

Eschier,  75 

Esmok,  62,  83,  101,  109,  173,  388 
(see  Sz-mao) 

Essen,  Mongol  chief,  38 

Etymology,  25,  26 

Etzina,  74 

Eunuchs,  35,  37,  58,  79,  208,  250, 
368,  384 

Europe,  53,  95  (see  Far  West) 

Europeans,  62,  78 

—  their  aspect  of  China,  7 

of  Chinese  people,  274 

Examinations,  military,  269 
Exchange,     143,     172,     207     (see 

Currency) 
Excise,  222,  238 
Executive  powers,  179,  185,  341 
ExtraterritoriaUty,  99,  340,  342 

Factories,  Chinese,  162 

—  the  old,  94,  117,  141  (see 
Canton) 

Fah-hien,  51,  63,  388 


INDEX 


401 


Faifo,  48,  57,  75,  79,  173,  388 
Fairs,  39,  46 
Fak'umen,  175,  248 
Family  cohesion,  302 

—  law,  311,  341 
Famines,  201 
Fans,  157,  344 
Fansur,  75 
Far  sang,  Gl 

Far  West,  23,  34,  52,  57,  87  (aee 

Europe) 
"  Father    and    Mother    Officers," 

257 
Feather  trade,  149 
Feet,  squeezed,  299,  377 
Females,  48,  141  (see  Women) 
Feng-hwang,  84,  175 
Feng-t'ien,  5,  218  (see  Mukden) 
Ferdinand,  King,  121 
Fereng,     Feringhi,     53,     72     (see 

Franks) 
Ferghana,  68,  389  (see  Kokand) 
Ferlech,  75 

Feudal  China,  312,  317  (see  Vassal) 
Fiadors,  141,  388 
Filatures,  146,  151,  154,  170 
Filial  piety,  309 
Finance,  Chinese,  148,  181,  205- 

221,  262-7 
Finns,  130,  134 
Fires,  162 

Firms,  foreign,  in  China,  151 
"First"  Emperor,  17,  18,  24,  43, 

49,  62,  198,  238 
Fisc,  205,  209 
Fish-skin  Tartars,  133 
Five  dynasties,  38,  55,  69,  139,  193 

—  monarchs,  1 8 

—  power  loan,  221 

—  punishments,  309,  330 

—  races,  375,  377,  383 
Flags,  377 

Flax,  47 

Fleets,  Chinese,  108,  211,  366  (see 

Navy) 
Florentine  trade,  77 
Flour,  146,  147 
"Flowery    Flag"    country,     111 

(see  America) 
Folang,  Folangki,  Fulang,  32,  36, 

78,  82,  88,   105  (see  Fulin  and 

Franks) 
Foochow,   22,    90,    98,    151,    157, 

224,  258,  388 

—  arsenal,  210,  211 

—  dialect,  363,  388,  392 

—  trade,  156 
Foot-binding  (see  Feet) 


Foreign  clothing,  147 

—  Custoin-house,    142,    154,    158 
(aee  Customs) 

—  loans,  211  (aee  Loans) 

—  Oflice,  British,  249 

—  population  in  China,  251,  252 

—  relations,  16,  42,  46 

—  tribes,  8 

Foreigners,  54,  70  (sec  Far  West) 
Formosa,  1,  30,  37,  40,  80,  90-2, 
98,  115,  155,  225,  388 

—  ceded  to  Japan,  1 

—  Dutch  in,  37 

—  French  in,  108,  114 

—  ignorance  of,  30 

—  Japanese  in,  93,  115,  156,  225, 
366 

—  opened,  98 

—  salt  trade,  225 

—  trade,  156 

Four  Cronies  or  Intimates,  242, 

384 
Fournier,  Admiral,  108 
Franciscans,  77,  299 
Franco-German  War,  110 
Frankish  Empire,  28,  78] 
Franks,  28,  33,  36,  58,  72,  78,  87, 

88,  90,  93,  127,  388 

—  (extended  signification),  78,  88 
(see  El  Rum  and  "  Romania  ") 

Frederick  the  Great,  109 
French,  36,  99,  105 

—  competition,  3,  109,  172-3 

—  hostilities,  114,  211,  265,  365 

—  parallels,  26 

—  trade,  151,  173 
Friars  Minor,  77 

Fu  cities,  15,  24,  187 

Fugitives,  103 

Fuh  Kien,  5,  56,  57,  90,  93,  156, 

224,  225,  285 
Fulang  (ki),  (see  Fulin  and  Folang) 
FuHn,  28,  32,  53,  72,  78,  88,  106, 

388 
Funam,  387 
Funerals,  302 
Furs,  39,  49,  136 
Fusan,  Pusan,  116,  388 
Fji-chow,  227  (see  Hwei-chou  Fu) 

Gabelle,  14,  181,  223-44  (see  Salt) 

GalUna,  Sign.,  119 

Gambling,  182 

Gandhara,  64 

Ganges,  63 

Gankin,  252  (see  An-k'ing  Fu) 

Garni er,  Francis,  107 

Gartok,  174 


402 


INDEX 


Gas,  147 

Gas  fuel,  222,  231 

Gates,  city,  258,  264 

Gayuk  or  Kayuk,  Khan,  73,  77, 

106,  129,  388 
Gendarixierie,  186 
General  of  Province,  260 
Genghiz,  Khan,  34,  72,  78,   133, 

388 
Genzan,  or  Wonsan,  394 
George  III.,  Letters  to  King,  97 
Georgius,  106 

Geougens,  28,  130  {see  Ju-ju) 
Gerard,  M.,  109 
German  activity,    149,    159,    162, 

232,  382 

—  shipping,  153 

—  trade,  148,  149,  170 

—  trained  troops,  265,  266 
Germany,   63,   99,   109,   212,   366 

(see  ICiao  Chou) 
Ghilen-tai,  235,  238,  239 
Gialbos  of  Tibet,  31,  139,  389 
Gibbon,  historian,  28,  51 
Giles,  Dr.  H.  A.,  131 
Giles,  Dr.  Lionel,  191,  200 
Ginseng,  289 
Glassware,  49 
Gnatong  (see  Yatung) 
Goa,  89 
Gobi,  59 

Goes,  Benedict,  79 
Gold  money,  43 

—  trade,  42 

• —  values,  143,  207  (see  Exchange) 
Golden  Khaii  (see  Altyn) 
Goldi,  133 
Gondophares,  47 
Goodnow,  Professor,  382 
Gorges,  231 
Goths,  129 
Government,  176-90 

—  Local,  182,  371 
Governors,  Military  and  Civil,  179 
Gozurat  (see  Gujerat) 

Grain  revenue,  206,  240  (see  Rice 

tribute) 
■ —  trade,  44 
Grand  Canal  (see  Canal) 
Grass-cloth,  153,  163 
Graves,  284 
Great  Northern  Telegraph  Co.,  117 

—  River  (see  Yang-tsze) 
of  Canton,  224 

—  Wall,  14,  84,  239  (see  Wall) 
Greek  history,  21  (see  Roman) 
Greeks,  47,  64,  66,  78,  296 
Grosvenor,  Mr.,  99 


Guilds,  154,  254 
Gujerat,  54,  71 
Guns  (see  Cannon) 

Habitat  of  Kitans,  77 

—  of  Ouigours,  63,  70 

—  of  Turks,  54 

Haiathala,  64,  67  (see  Ephthalitea) 

Hailar  River,  84 

Hainan,  9,  23,  98,  147,  389 

—  salt,  224 

Haiphong,  85,  108,  172,  389 
Hair,  168 

—  human,  147 
Haiteng,  75  (see  Zaitun) 
Haithon,  135  (see  Armenia) 
Hakkas,  278 

Hami,  59,  74,  78,  79,  81,  83,  128 
Han  dynasty.  After,  23,  33,  340 

Early,  20,  24,  27,  49,   128, 

196,  340 
Third,  24,  349 

—  "  Men  of,"  20,  389 

—  Prince  of,  20,  44 

—  River.  14,  161,  169,  231,  241 

—  Wen  Ti,  328 

—  Wu  Ti  (see  Wu  Ti) 
Han  Fei-tsz,  318 
HanUn  Academy,  306,  384 
Hang,  range,  5 

Hangchow",  10,  32,  34,  65,  71,  78, 
116,  157,  158,  226,  258  (see 
Kinsai) 

Hankow,  52,  75,  98,  151,  161,  169, 
245,  389 

-r-  destruction  of,  162 

—  trade,  158 
Hanoi,  85,  388 
Harashar,  59,  63,  64,  74,  387 
Harbin,  105,  174 

Hart,  Sir  Robert,  241,  251,  317 

Havret,  Pere,  76 

Heaven,  words  signifying,  387 

—  worshipped  by  rulers,  381 
Heh-lung  Kiang,  218  (see  Tsitsi- 

har) 
Hemp,  47,  91,  149 
Henri  of  Orleans,  Prince,  82 
Hephthalites  (see  Ephthalites) 
Herat,  79 
Hermaios,  47 
Hernax,  128 

Hia  dynasty  (Ancient),  18 
(Hiung-nu),  27 

—  state,  34,  392  (see  Tangut) 
Hia-kwan,  174  (see  Nanking) 
Hiao,  341 

Hide  trade,  39,  149,  168 


INDEX 


403 


Hideyoshi,  3G,  388 

Hien,  city  divisions,  15,  184,  209, 
257 

Hien,  religious  sectarians,  71 

Hi-feng  K'ou  (Great  Wall  pass),  85 

High  Carts,  131  {sec  Carts,  Wag- 
gons)] 

Himalayas,  13,  00,  81  (see  K'un- 
lun) 

Hindoo  colonies,  32,  49 

—  connections,  4 

—  missionaries,  22 

—  words  in  Chinese  use,  387,  394 
Hindu  Koosh,  64 

Hingan  Range,  85 
Hing-hwa  Fu,  224,  389 
Hioki,  Mr.,  382 
Hira,  Gl 
Hirado,  92 

Hirth,  Frederick,  56,  61,  71,  128 
Historians  (see   Sz-ma   and   Con- 
fucius) 
History,  Book  of,  42 

—  Early,  16,  345 

—  true,  16,  18,  350 
Hiung-nn,  19,  20,  23,  25,  27,  28, 

33,  46,  64,  121,  127,   191,  238, 
347,  389  (see  Huns) 

—  dynasties,  27 

—  modern,  121 
Hoh-feicity,  185,  187 
Hoihow,  98,  389 

—  trade,  152 
Ho-kien  Fu,  239 
Hokow,  108,  172 

Ho  Kwei,  Viceroy,  247 
Holansi,  106 

Holland,  or  Ho-lan,  36,  89,  93,  106 
Ho-nan  Fu,  or  city,  11,  23,  24,  65, 

69 
Ho  Nan  province,  19,  34,  231,  239, 

246 
Hong  Kong,  94,  98,  152,  154 

—  trade,  74,  108,  153,  156,  172 
"Hongs,"  98,  HI,  117,  141,  154, 

389 
Honolulu,  113,  374 
Hooghly,  65 

Hoppo  of  Canton,  56,  154,  249 
Hormuz,  75,  77,  80 
Horse-back  Powers,  6,  18,  129 
Horses,  foreign,  78,  106 
Horse-shoes,  86 
Horse  trade,  39,  44,  46,  78 
Ho-tung,  240 
House  duties,  182,  193 
Households,  198-203 
Hiian  Chwang,  63 

28 


Hue,  AbW,  82 

flu-kiin-shi,  261 

Hu  Kwang,  203,  372  (see  Hu  Nan, 

Hu  Peh) 
Hu  Lin-yih,  Governor,  245 
Hu  Nan,  province,  5,  22,  35,  58, 

161 
Hunchun,  174 
Hundred  Families,  314 
Hungarians,  34,  134,  297 
Hung-hien,  era,  384 
Hung  Siu-ts'iian,  305 
Hung-tseh,  lake  or  marsh,  11,  389 
Huns,  21,  63,  128  (see  Hiung-nu) 
Himters,  24,  138,  181 
Hu  Peh,  province,  6,  232,  233 
Hwa-hia,  126 
Hwai-k'ing  Fu.  11,  389 
Hwai  region,  22 

—  River,  7,  10,  22,  208,  227 

—  salt  monopoly,  224-7 
Hwa-ma  Ch'i,  236 

Hwang  Ho,  388  (see  Yellow  River) 

source  of,  10 

Hwang  Ti,  era  and  ruler,  374 
Hwei-chou  Fu,  227 
Hydrogen  gas,  231 
Hyperboreans,  102,  126 

Ibn  Batuta,  75 

Ice- free  ports,  168 

Ich'ang,  12,  100,  159,  389 

Icheng,  229,  394 

I-chou,  or  Wi-chou,  84 

Ignatieff,  103,  139 

Ikotanga, Tartar  General  or  Vice- 
roy, 235 

Hi,  22,  40,  47,  59,  73,  78,  104,  127, 
129,  134,  137,  180,  263,  366,  389 

—  Russians  in,  104 
Iliang,  Viceroy,  246 
Impecunious  provinces,3,203, 215 
Import  duties,  144 
Indemnities,  113,  264 

India,  22,  29,  32,  47,  49,  51,  57, 
77,  100,  140,  296,  340 

—  North  and  South,  04 

—  relations  with  China,  32 
Indian  Government,  13 

—  Ocean,  54,  67 

—  yarns,  145  (see  Cotton) 
Indo-China,   19,  23,  51,   172,  226 

(see  Cochin-China,  Annam,  Ton- 

quin) 
Indo- Scythians,   47,   64,   67,    134, 

348    (see    Ephthalites,    Yueh- 

chi) 
Indus,  63,  174 


404 


INDEX 


Infanticide,  285 

Infants  and  crime,  31G 

Ingkili,  72 

Inland  Water  Navigation  Pvules, 

163 
Inner  Lower  River,  245 
Innocent  IV.,  77 
Inns,  282,  290 
Inscriptions,    foreign,    31,    68,    77 

(see  Ancient  Remains) 
Inspector-General,  215,  252,  254 
Insurance,  291 
Intellectuality,  294 
Intendants,  189  (see  tao  divisions) 
Intermarriages,  27 
Invisible  exports  and  imports,  144 
Iron  ciurency,  47 

—  dynasty,  392  (see  Kitans) 

—  gates,  64,  73  (see  Derbend) 

—  licences,  238 

—  trade,  11,  44,  49,  52,  57,  61,  62, 
66,  67,  86,  205,  235,  238 

—  working,  29,  54,  130 
Irrawaddv  River,  9,  52,  62,  74,  82, 

106,  389 

sources,  82 

Irrigation,  66 

Irtish,  River,  131,  137 

Isaiah,  106 

Islam,  65,  302  (see  Mussulmans) 

Ispahan,  78 

Issibur,  136  (see  Sibir,  Siberia) 

Issyk  Kul,  64,  66,  72,  73,  389 

Italy,  118,  119,  368 

—  Early,  21,  78,  86,  94 

Ito,  Count,  Marquess,  Prince,  367 
I-tsing,  the  bonze,  65 
Ivan  the  Great,  136 

—  the  Terrible,  136 
Ivory,  56 

Jabgu,  Khan,  64 

Jade,  81 

Jaffa,  83 

Jagatai,  Khan,  78 

Janissaries,  267 

Japan,  20,  22,  29,  35,  38,  40.  63, 

71,   89,   92,   99,   114,   133,   140, 

197,  389 

—  earliest  use  of  the  name,   29, 
389 

European  visit  to,  89 

—  ousts  Germany,  170,  175 

—  takes  Formosa,  93 
Japanese  example,  186,  340,  369 

—  in  Corea,  22,  36,  171 

—  in  Mongolia,  129 

—  language,  360 


Japanese  pirates,  36 

—  revolution,  115 

—  shipping,  150,  157,  160,  161, 
164,   166 

—  trade,  56,  71,  143,  148,  151,  156 
trained  armies,  266 

—  war  with  China,  40,  104,  110, 
116,  166,  167,  211,  227,  237, 
264,  366 

■  with  Russia,  105,  117,  307, 

370 

—  writing,  348 
Jartoux,  S.  J.,  106 

Java,  25,  32,  35,  36,  51,  54,  57,  63, 
71,  75,  92,  94,  197,  387 

—  Dutch  in,  92,  94,  142 
Jaxartes,  72,  78,  389 
Jeddah,  80,  83 

Jehol,  97,  175,  180,  184 

Jerusalem,  83 

Jesuits,  76,  87,  89,  94,   106,   109, 

118,298 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  296 
Jeujens  (see  Geougens,  Ju-ju) 
Jews,  23,  45,  70,  274,  298 
Joostens,  M.,   113 
Jubb,  80 
Judaea,  95 

Judge,  Provincial,  179 
Judges,  new,  180,  341 
Judicial  and  Executive,  179 

—  system,  251 

Ju-ju  or  J  wan- j  wan,  28,  130  (see 

Geougen) 
Jungluh,  368,  369 
Junks,  35,  70,  91,  225-6,  389 

—  river,  60 

Junk  to  U.S.  and  London,  98 

—  trade,  51,  56,  57,  91,  152,  153, 
159,247 

Justice,  183,  319 
Justin,  66,  67 
Justinian,  322,  337,  372 
Jute,  149 

Kabul,  60,  63,  79,  83 
Kachyns,  8,  9,  389 
Kadesieh,  68 
Kadphises,  47,  64 
K'ai-feng  Fu,  70 
K'ai-Lan,  Coal  Co.,  168,  212 
Kaiser  (see  Wilhelm) 
Kalgan,  4.  72,  84, 103,  168,  237, 389 
Kalhat,  75 

Kalikiit,  76  (see  Calicut) 
Kalkhas,  39 

Kalmucks,  40,  80,  103,  135,  137, 
389  (see  Dzungars,  Eleuths) 


INDEX 


405 


Kampot,  79,  387 

Ivamti  tribes,  0 

Kan,  river,  0 

Kanagawa  Treaty,  115,  389 

Kan-ehou  Fu,  23,  59,  63,  70,  74 

Kandnhar,  60,  83 

Kandy,  80  • 

K'ang,  state,  69 

K'ang-hi,  Emperor,    80,    95,    199, 

244,  299,  330 
K'ang  Yu-wei,  189,  368,  380 
Kan"^Suh,    10,   23,    83,    132,    139, 

235,  246,  298,  302 
Kant,  295 

Kaoli,  29  {see  Corea) 
Kapisa,  64 
Kapitan  Mo,  88 
Karahoto,  or  -hhoto,  82 
Kara-Kirghis  or  Buruts,  389  (see 

Pu-lu-t'eh) 
Kara-Kitans,  77,   133,  389 
Karakoram   city   (Mongolia),    00, 

72,   74 

—  Pass  (Kashmir  region),  59,  63 
Karategin,  62 

Kase,    or    Kathe,    139,    390    (see 

Manipur) 
Kashgar,  60,  65,  74,  83 
Kashgaria,  40,  59,  81 
Kashmir,  32,  59,  81 
Kattigara,  48 
Kawlam,  76  (see  Quilon) 
Kazaks,    135,   389   (see  Cossacks, 

Kirghis) 
Kazan,  orK'a-shan,  136 
Kelantan,  80 
Kelat,  83 

Kellet,  Captain,  R.N.,  98 
Kem,  river,  137 
Keng-hung,  74 
Kerosene,  46,  146,   102,   168,  290 

(see  Petroleum) 
Kerulon,  river,  72,  80 
Kesch,  64,  73,  79 
Kewkiang,    98,   162-4,    169,   227, 

252,  389 
Keys,  258  (see  Gates) 
Khabarovska,  105 
Khansa,  76  (see  Kinsai) 
Khata,  79  (see  Kitans) 
Khavanda,  65 
Kiachta,  84,  103,  138,  169 
Kiai  Chou,  240 
Kia-k'ing,  Emperor,  304 
Kiang,  the  (see  Yang  tsze) 

—  Nan,  226,  248 

—  Peh  or  Pei  (=  North  Kiang  Su), 
228,  252 


Kiang  Si,  5,  60,  103,  224,  227 

—  Su,  252,  254,  378-9 

—  'J'ung  (near  Esmok).  H3 

tsz  (Tibet  "  port  "),  174 

Kiao-chi,  25,  389 

Kiao  Chou  ("  Cernnan  sphere"), 

63,  105,  109,  144,  167,  170,  230, 

265,  367 
Kiao-chou  (Tonquin),  25,  389 
Kia-yiih   Pass,    78,    81,   83,    169, 

235,  389 
K'ien,  kingdom,  5,  222  (see  Kwei 

Chou) 
K'ien-lung,  Emperor,  81,  97,  137, 

199,  304,  390,  393 
Kiev,  or  Ki-yu,  136 
Kikuchi,  Baron,  348 
Kilung,  80,  92,  389  (see  Formosa) 
Kin-chou  Fu,  84,  175 
King-chou  Fu,  160 
Kinsai,  76,  197  (see  Hangchow) 
Kin-sha  (or  Golden  Sand)  River, 

69,  389 
Kin  Shan,  387  (see  Altai  Mts.) 
Kin-t'ien,  41  (see  Sun-chou  Fu) 
Kipchaks,  102,  134,  135 
KipHng,  R.,  183 
Kirghis,  66,  102,  127,  132,  137,  389 

Kazaks,  135,389 

Kirin,  84,  174-5 

Kissing,  act  of,  288 

Kitan  foundei  (Apaoki),  69 

Kitans,  28,  33,  38,  40,  53,  55,  69, 

84,     133,    195,    257,    339    (se?. 

Cathayans) 
Kitat,  53,  79 

K'iung-chou  Fu  (see  Hoihow) 
Knife  coins,  42 
Kokand,   22,  46,   47,   61,'  68,   81, 

83,  389 
Kokonor,  or  Kukunor,  24,  39,  59, 

81,  169,  180,  389 
K'o-li-foh,  70  (see  Caliph) 
Kongmun,  153,  173,  389 
Korla,  59 
Kotaiba,  68 
Kowloong  101,  153,  367 
"  Kowtow,"  the,  384 
Koxinga,  91,  93,  96,  389 
Ktesiphon,  61 
Kublai  Khan,  12,  34,  38,  41,  74, 

77,  106,  129,  197,  202,  234,  239, 

338,  390 
Kuche,  04 
K'u-ch'eng,     or     Koziim,     Khan, 

136-7 
Ku-chou  (in  Kwei  Chou),  224 
Kugiar,  63 


406 


INDEX 


Kukukhoto,  180  (c/.  Kokonor  and 

Karahoto) 
Killing  ("cooling"  resort),  163 
K'ulun,  390  (see  Urga) 
Kunibum,  monastery,  82 
Kumchuk,  153,  389 
Kumiss,  46 

Kiln  (army  or  navy),  269 
Kiin-chu  (monarchical),  373,  375, 

383 
Kimduz,  74 

Kung-ho  (democracy),  344,  373 
Kiinlon  ferry,  62,  74 
Kunlun  (Condor),  79 
K'unlunMts.  (Himalayas),  13,  60, 

81 
Kunsan,  390 
Kuren,  390  (see  K'ulun) 
Kushan,  64  (see  Ephthalites) 
Kutlug,  Khan,  132,  390 
K'wan-ch'eng-tsz,     84,     175    (see 

Ch'ang-ch'un) 
Kwan  Chung,  43,  238,  296,  314, 

320 
Kwan  Hien,  233 
Kwan-tsz  (see  Kwan  Chung) 
Kwang-chou,  25 

Fu,  120  (see  Canton) 

Wan,  109,  110,  173,  368 

nan,  25  (see  Kwang-chou) 

Fu  (in  Yun  Nan),  224 

—  Si,  8,  13,  23,  108,  173,  203,  223, 
233,  248,  305 

trade,  155 

sin,  227 

su.   Emperor,   211,  243,    308, 

341,  371 

—  -teh,  227 

—  Tung,  13,  87  (see  Canton) 
Kwei  Chou,  5,  8,  9,  13,  23,  60,  83, 

184,  203,  218,  231,  300 

trade,  13,  83,  224 

Kwei-hwa,    84,    180    (see    Kuku- 
khoto) 

Kwei-lin  Fu,  155 

Kweisiang,  373 

Kwoh-min  Tang,  376 

Kwok-sing-ya,  93  (see  Koxinga) 

Lake  Ghilen  (see  Ghilen-tai) 

—  salt,  222,  240 

—  shipping,  164 

—  Victoria,  65 
Lakes,  6,  10,  161,  361 
Lama-Miao,  84,  390 
Lamas,  139,  383 
Lambri,  57,  70,  75,  80 
Lamps,  147,  162 


Lan-chou  Fu,  235 
Land-tax,      198-9,     202-5,     241, 
249 

—  -trade,  48,  104,  143 
Lang,  Admiral,  270,  366 
Langson,  108,  173 
Languages.  7,  19,  25-6,  351-64 
Lan-li,  70,  80  (see  Lambri) 
Lao,  tribes,  390 

Laocius  or  Lao-tsz,  295,  314,  319, 

322,  390 
Laos,  Laotian,  9 
Lao  Vinh-phuc,  107,  390 
Lao-wa  T'an,  233,  390 
Lappa,  153,  390 
Lar  or  Lar,  75,  76 
Lari,  82,  390 
Law,  307-42 
Law,  English,  308 

—  reform,  287,  302,  340 
Lay,  Mr.  H.  N.,  247 
Lead,  142 

Leasehold  ports,  170 
Legal  Classic,  317,  322 
Legations,  Ciiinese,  100 
Legge,  Dr.,  314,  337 
Legislative    functions,     185,     341 

(see  Judicial) 
Legj'a,  83 

Lei-chou  Peninsula,  23,  56,  173 
Lepers,  283 

Lesser  (or  Small)  River,  223,  224 
Lewis  IX,  105 
Lewis  XIV,  106 
Lhassa,  31,  82,  101,  390 
Li  dynasty,  Tonquin,  172 
Li  Han-chang,  248 
Li  Hung-chang,  185,   187,  211-2, 

248,  365-9 
Li  Hwei,  245 
Li  K'wei,  317 
Li  Shi-min,  30,  333 
Li  Sz,  318 
Li  Yang-ts'ai,  107 
Li  Yiian,  30 
Li    Yiian- hung,    President,     145, 

189,  374,  380,  384,  386 
Liang  dynasty,  27 
Liang-chou  Fu,  23,  54,  62,  63,  69 
Liang  K'i-ch'ao,  380,  382,  386 
Liao  dynasty,  392  (see  Iron  and 

Kitans) 

—  River,  166 

—  Tung  Convention,  116 

Peninsula,  105,  110,  366 

Liao-yang,  175,  235 
Licences,  182,  205 

Lih-fah  Yiian,  383,  386 


INDEX 


407 


Likin,  56,  144,  148,  160,  163,  227, 

245-55,  372,  390 
Lingering  death,  335 
Ling-ting  Is.,  97 

Literary  men,  17,  25,  44,  111,  346 
Liu,  the  family,  24 
Liu-k'iu  (see  Loochoo) 
Liu  K'un-yih,  187,  248,  268,  283, 

369  (see  Viceroj^s,  Three  good) 
Liu  Pang,  20,  44 
Liu  Ping-chang,  204 
Liu  Yen,  240 
Liu    Yung-fuh    (see    Lao    Vinh- 

phuc) 
Loans,   211,   216,   227,   239,   253, 

360,  369,  372,  377,  380 
Lobanoff,  Prince,  367 
Lob  Nor,  59,  63,  74,  81 
Local  Councils,  186,  371 
Lochac,  75  (see  Siam) 
Lockhart,  Sir  J.  S.,  171 
Loess,  or  Loss,  11,  390 
Loha,  river,  85 
Lolos,  8,  12,  390 
Loochoo,  30,  36,  40,  71,  93,  115, 

390 
Loop  (see  Yellow  River) 
Lord  of  Heaven,  94 
Louis  Philippe,  106 
Lu,  state  of,  17 
Luh  Cheng- siang,  384 
Lii-chou  Fu,  187 
LU     Shun-k'ou,     391     (see     Port 

Arthur) 
Luke,  Syrian,  106 
Lungchingtsun,  174 
Lungchow,  108,  168,  173 
Lung-k'ou,  174 
Luzon,  36,  90  (see  Manila) 

Ma'abar,  36,  75 

Macao,  87,  89,  96,  106,  114,  118, 
153,  390 

—  trade,  90,  153 
Macartney,  Lord,  97,  337 
Ma-cha,    or     Madjars,     134     (see 

Hungarians) 
Mackay,  Sir  Jas.,  251 

—  treaty,  144,  251,  372 
Madagascar,  75 
Madras,  75,  80 

Maes  the  Macedonian,  62 
Magadoxa,  75,  80 
Magna  Chartas,  321,  373 
Mahomet,  53,  80,  296,  302,  330 
Mahometans,  292,  298  (see  Mus- 
sulmans) 
Mailapur,  77' 


Maine,  Sir  H.,  309 
Malabar,  36,  54,  75,  77,  83 
Malacca,  37,  83,  88 
Malay,  36,  49,  51,  65,  390 
Mali-kha,  river,  9,  390 
Malwa,  71 
Manas,  59,  73 
Manchouli,  174 
Manchu  characteristics,  272 

—  Empire,  22,  37,  258,  335 

—  princes,  267,  272,  372-3  (ace 
Emperors) 

—  rulers,  177,  181,  198,  244 

—  the  word,  390 

Manchuria,  1,  3,  5,  34,  36,  38,  40, 
84,  104,  139,  165,  289  (^ee  Kirin, 
Tsitsihar) 

—  aggressions  in,  98 

—  assimilation  of,  2,  165,  272 

—  Japan  and  Russia  in,  3,  151, 
165-6 

Manchurian  salt,  235 

—  trade,  143,  151,  165 
Manchus,  28,  33,  37,  39,  80,  256, 

390 

—  ejected,  181,  257,  375,  381 

—  in  Formosa,  93 
Mandalay,  83 
Mandarin,  390 

—  language  or  dialects,  26,  363 

—  "  trade,"  204 

Mangu,  Khan,  105,  129,  390 
Maniach,  66,  67 

Manicha?ans,  72,  77,  132,  298,  330 
Manifest    faith    bonds,    239    (see 

Loans) 
Manila,  36,  57,  71,  90,  113,  117, 

297,  390 
Manipur,  139,  290 
Manufactures,   Chinese,    145,    163 

(see  Factories) 
Manure,  148 
Manzi,  or  Man-tsz,  157,  197,  258, 

390 
Maps,  12,  15,  95,  106 

—  Bretschneider's,  15,  19,  and 
end  of  book 

Marco  Polo,  33-5,  55,  57,  71,  73-4, 

168,  197,241 
"  Marcus  Aurelius,"  the  Chinese, 

323,  336 
Margarine,  148 
Margary,  R.,  99 
Margiana,  61,  64 
Margilan,  61 
MarignoU,  78 
Marine  activity,  35 
Marinas  of  Tyre,  62 


408 


INDEX 


Marriage,  284 

—  alliances,  70,  272 
Marshes,  Salt,  241 
Martyrdoms,  106 
Massacre  at  Canton,  67 

—  at  Tientsin,  99 
Masulipatam,  75 
Mathematics,  54 

Mats  and  matting,  149,  157 

Maulmein,  74 

Mayers,  W.  F,,  19 

Maxims,  legal,  319,  324 

Mazdeans,  72,  76,  298,  330 

Mecca,  83 

Medical  missions,  299 

Mehteh,  Khan,  20,  46  (.see  Bagh- 

dur)  -' 
Mei-Ung,  range,  14,  391 
]\Iekong,  river,  62,  74 
Melibar,  75  (see  Malabar) 
Meneius,  or  Meng-tsz,  320 
Mendez  Pinto,  89,  102 
Mengtsz,   "port,"   108,   168,   172, 

391 
Mercantile  honour,  283 
Merchant  guilds,  Russian,  136 

—  —  Chinese,  154,  254 
Merchants,  early,  44,  53 
Merv,  63,  68 

Mesopotamia,  22,  47,  52,  76 
Mexico,  90,  91,  120,  378 
Mezzobarba,  118 

Miao  tribes,  7,  8,  22,  24,  390 

—  officials,  8,  183 
Mien,  387  {see  Burma) 
Mien-chu,  city,  234 
Migrations,   6,   9,   13,   22,   34,  49, 

85,  203 
Mikado,  resuscitated,  115 

—  the  word,  391 
Milan,  King,  121 

Military  instructors,  110,  265,  266 

Milk,  preserved,  147 

Mills,  145,  176,  211  {see  Manu- 
factures) 

Min-kwoh  (RepubUc),  374,  386 

Min-Yiieh,  22 

Ming  dynasty,  35,  38,  58,  135,  198, 
304,  338,  391 

—  history,  79 
Mining,  161 
Ministries  {see  Boards) 
Mints,  211,  224 
Mirrors,  147 

Missionaries,  early,  87,  95,  106, 
151,  163 

—  German,  367 

—  Hindoo,  22 


Missionaries,    modern,    99,     151, 

305 
Missions  to   Peking,   77,   88,   93, 

95 
Mixed  courts  for  Manchus,  273 
Mocha,  83,  92 
Mokhoi,  85 
Momein,    74,    101,    174,    234   (see 

T'eng-yiieh) 
MongoUa,  34,  39,  40,  133,  221 

—  Outer,  180,  235,  377 
Mongol  Empire,  35,  237 

—  history,  74 

—  Khans,  40,  72,  73,  75,  102,  105, 
129 

—  race,  28,  180 

—  trade  in  oranges,  157 

—  wars  with  Ming  dynasty,  36 

—  word,  the,  391 

Mongols,  28,  33,  35,  39,  66,  133, 
135,  266,  282 

—  conquer  China,  65,  102,  134, 
197 

—  Mussulman  branch  of,  73 
Monopolies,  182 

Monosyllabic  languages,  8,  19,  354 
Monsoons,  57,  71 
Monte-Corvino,  77,  78,  303 
Monuments,  31   (see  Ancient   re- 
mains) 

Morse,  Mr.  H.  B.,  113 

Moscow,  or  Moskwa,  136 

Moso  tribes,  9 

Mosques,  68,  83 

Motor-boats,  155 

Motors,  147 

Mountain  ranges,  14 

"Mouths,"  194-6  {see  "House- 
holds") 

Muang-u,  234 

Mukden,  29,  53,  84,  248,  306,  391 

Mul  Java,  76 

Mule  traffic,  74,  147 

Munitions  of  war,  168  (see  Arms) 

Muravieff,  138 

Muru,  or  Mulu,  61 

Murui-usu,  69,  82  (see  Yang-tsze) 

Musical  boxes,  147 

Musk,  79,  159 

Mussulman  revolts,  104,  107,  202, 
250 

Mussulmans,  11,  32,  67,  83  {see 
Mahometans) 

—  Chinese,  68,  83,  234,  298 

—  Kan  Suh,  83,  298 

—  Yiin  Nan,  83,  298  (see  Pan- 
thays) 

Mythical  times,  18 


INDEX 


409 


Nagasaki,  92,  391 

Naimans,  77 

Names,  ancient  provincial,  5 

—  national,  31  (see  National) 
Nan-chao,  32,  G9,  139  (see  Early 

Siamese,  and  Chao) 

—  annals,  140 

Nanking,  34,  37,  1G4,  220,  2G5, 
305,  391 

—  dynasties,  27,  51,  52 

—  republic,  242,  374 

—  sacked,  378 

—  treaty,  106,  142,  246,  299 
Nan-ning  Fu,  83,  155,  173 
Nan  Shan,  14 

Nan-yiieh,  or  South  Yiieh,  22,  23, 
25,  48,  60,  101,  223 

Napoleon  I,  44 

Napoleon  III,  106 

"  Narses,"  a  Chinese,  79 

National  Assembly,  377  (.see  Par- 
liament) 

—  designations,  4,  20,  30,  31,  53, 
68,  116  (see  Names) 

Naturalisation,  114 

Naval  bases,  101,  167 

Navy,  Chinese,  108,  167,  210,  211, 

270,  366  (see  Fleets) 
Nay  en.  Prince,  38,  393 
Nayench'eng,  304 
Necuveran,  75  (see  Nicobars) 
Negroes,  52,  57 
Nemati,  Kalman,  134 
Nepaul,  32,  40,  69,  80,   97,   139, 

234,  391 
Nepaulese  war,  69,  72 
Nerchinsk,  103,  105,  138 
Nestorians,  32,  53,  55,  65,  70,  72, 

76,  298 
Nestorian  Stone,  32,  55,  76 
Newchwang,  98,  165,  166,  391 

—  trade,  165-6 

New  Territory,  or  Sin  Kiang,  1,  2, 
22 

assimilation  of,  2 

Nicholas  II,  Czar,  366 
Nicholas  III,  Pope,  77 
Nicholas  de  Bonnet,  78 

—  (Koxinga),  92 

Nicobars,  65,  75  (see  Necuveran) 

Niekulun,  78 

Nien-po,  82 

Nine  Chapters  (law),  322,  338 

Ning-hia  Fu,  168,  392 

Ningpo,  24,  55,  71,  89,  96,  98,  391 

—  trade,  157 
Ninguta,  175 
Niuru,  257 


Nomad  states,  59 

Nomads,  6,  18,  19,  26,  41,  43,  59, 

129,   191 
Non-Chinese,  180  (see  Barbarians) 
Nonni,  river,  85 
Nordenskjold,  Professor,  134 
"  North  "  River,  224  (see  "  Small "') 
North  and  South  Empires,  26 
Novgorod,  135,  136,  391 
Nvichens,  28,  33-4,  38,  40,  57,  69, 

84,  133,  195,  228,  235,  241,  257, 

339,  391 
Nudjkend,  64 
Nurhachi,  39 

Oak-worm  silk,  170 
Obata,  Mr.,  383 
Obi,  river,  135 

Ocho  (Uchiu  or  Foochow),  90,  388 
Octroi,  373,  391 
Odessa,  161,  169 
Odon-tala,   10,  391 
Odoric,  Friar,  77 
Oech,  391  (see  Oxus) 
Office,  Sale  of,  186,  207,  247,  250 
Ogdai,  Khan,  73,  129,  391 
Oil  (see  Bean,  Kerosene) 
Oirat,  389  (see  Eleuths) 
Okhotsk,  138 

Old  China,  4,  20,   23,   34,  195-6, 
223,  234 

—  maids,  285 
Olopen,  76 
Onon,  river,  72 

Opium,  46,  85,  86,  96,  247,  252, 
290    337 

—  abolition,   145,    157,    159,    161, 
165,  252,  300,  377 

—  Convention,  100,  114,  153 

—  native,  159,  247 

—  smuggling,  204,  291 

—  trade,  86,  98-100,  142,  146,  159 

—  war,  96,  99 
Oranges,  bitter,  157 

Ordos,  10,  14,  23,  34,  82,  238,  391 
Orgetorix,  44 
Origin  of  Chinese,  4 
Orkhon,  River,  69,  77,  131 
Orleans,  Prince  U.  of,  82 
Osmanli,  31 
Ostiaks,  132,  135,  136 
Otrar,  72,  79,  135 
Ouigour  capitals,  63,  77,  79 
Ouigom-s,  31,  34,  63,  69,  74,  131, 
132,  241,  391 

—  become  Mussulmans,  69 
Oxus,  river,    47,    61,   64,  66,   73, 

79.  391 


410 


INDEX 


Pacific  Ocean,  19,  133 

Pagoda  Anchorage,  108,  121,  270 

—  at  Canton,  68 
Pahang,  80 
Pakhoi,  83,  100,  391 

—  trade,  83,  152 

Palace  expenditure,  208,  211,  214, 
384 

—  favour,  249 
Palembang,  57,  80 
Pali,  76 
Palisade,  248 

Pamirs,  22,  37,  47,  51,  60,  65,  81, 

128    391 
Panjab,  72,  134,  388 
Pans,  iron,  45 
Panthays,  83,  234,  264 
Pantoja,  95 

Pao  Ch'ao,  General,  204 
Pao-ting  Fu,  239 
Paper,  347 

Parkes,  Sir  Harry,  365 
Parliaments,   181,   186,  341,  371, 

373,  378,  383,  386 
Parthia,  21,  49 
Parthiana,  47,  50,  51,  61 
Pascal,  78 
Pasio,  S.J.,  87 
Pasture,  66 
Peacocks,  48 

Peace-promoting  Association,  382 
Pearl  River,  14  (see  Great,  West, 

Canton) 
Pearls,  46,  56 
Pecul  (Chinese  cwt.),  391 
Pegoletti,  78 

Peh-hai,  391  (see  Pakhoi) 
Peh-ngai,  155 
Peh-seh,  83,  224,  391 
Pei-kwan  suburb,  306 
Pei-tai  Ho,  168 
Peking,  33,  37,  84,  88,  95,  208,  230, 

251,  285,  373,  377 

—  Contingent,  182 

—  dialect,  352 

—  Government,  3,  177,  206,  249, 
372 

—  occupied  by  Manchus,  95 
by  Allies,  94 

—  opened,  98,  251 

—  Syndicate,  119 

—  the  word,  391 
PelUot,  Paul,  M.,  77,  132 
Penang,  83 

Pencil,  hair,  347 
Pendjeh  incident,  365 
P'eng-hu,  391  (see  Pescadores) 
Pensioned  Manchus,  181-2 


Pentam,  76  (see  Bantam) 
Peres  de  Andrado,  88 
Perovsky,  Fort,  72 
Persecutions,  95 
Persia,  30,  32,  34,  40,  51,  53,  66, 

67,  68,  105,  131-2,  134,340,391 
Persian  appeal  to  China,   30,  "^3 

(see  Pirouz) 

—  Gulf,  50,  71,  80 

—  priests,  72,  77,  330 

—  traders,  54,  67,  79 

—  works,  79 
Peru,  119 

Pescadores,  92,  108,  391 
Peshawur,  63 

Petra,  52 

Petroleum,  86  (see  Kerosene) 

Philip  II,  90 

Philip  the  Fair,  105 

Philippines,  91,  118,  156,  391  [see 
Manila) 

Philology,  25,  53,  343-64 

Philosophers,  308,  317,  346 

Phoenicians,  48 

P'i-she-ja  (see  Formosa) 

P'iao,  387 

"  Pidjin  "  (=  "  business  ")  Eng- 
lish, 90 

Piebald-horse  Pond,  235  (sec 
Hwa-ma) 

Piece-goods  (see  Cotton,  Textile) 

Pigs,  152 

Pigtails,  147,  252,  267,  274,  275, 
292,  373,  378 

Pilgrims,  51,  62,  83 

—  to  Mecca,  83 

—  to  Sanciano,  87 
Pilots,  river,  13 

Pineapple  (Ananas  saliva)  cloth, 

153 
P'ing-shan,  12,  391 
P'ing  Siu-kih,  389  (see  Hideyoshi) 
P'ing-yang,  84,  391 
Pinto,  Mendez,  89,  102 
Pin-t'ung  (see  Binh-thuan) 
Pirates,  36,  37,  56,  85,  89,  90,  109 
Pirouz,  68,  391  (see  Persian) 
Plague,  166 
Pliny,  48,  49,  62 
Plum  Range  (see  Mei-ling) 
Police,  183,  209  (see  Gendarmerie) 
Polo  (see  Marco) 
Polygamy,  284 
Pond-salt,     222,     236,     241     (see 

Hwa-ma) 
Pongee   silk,  170  (— pen-ki,  "  our 

own  loom  ") 
Poppy,  97  (see  Opium) 


INDEX 


411 


Popular   party,    376,    378-9   (see 

Ku'oh-min  Tang) 
Population,  12,  191-204  (sec  map) 

—  distribution  of,  2,  7  (see  map) 

—  foreign,  151-2 

Porcelain,  57,  163  (see  Potteries) 
Pork,  298 

Po-sz,  391  (sec  Persia) 
Port  Arthur,  105,  110,  166,  366-7, 
391  (see  Lii-shun  K'ou) 

—  Hamilton,  365-6 
Ports,  ancient,  49 

"  Ports,"  inland,  108,  168,  171 
Ports,  special,  174 

—  treaty,  142 

forty- seven,  175 

Portugal,  one  with  Spain,  90 
Portuguese,  36,  87,  90,  113 

—  religious  intrigues,  96 

—  trade,  88 

Postal  conference,  119 

Posts,  86,  175,  208 

Potocki,  Food  Dictator,  45 

"  Po^wfci  "  man,  88 

Potteries,  103 

Poutiatin,  Count,   103 

Poyang  Lake,  10,  163,  227,  391 

PrcEtorium,  187  (see  Yamen) 

Prefects,  188 

Preparation  for  Parliament  Bu- 
reau, 384,  386 

Presidents,  Chinese,  145-6,  178, 
181,  189,  219,  252,  299,  374 
(see  Yiian  and  Li) 

Press,  the,  370 

Pride's  Purge,  379 

Princes,  Manchu,  211,  272,  373 

Prints,  57 

Prisons,  282 

Privileges,  258,  272,  336,  339 

Proconsuls,  Military,  180 

Progress,  86,  102,  212  (see  Re- 
forms) 

Provinces,  Eighteen,  1,  2,  5,  15, 
19,  23,  180,  184,  222 

—  Pauper,  203  (see  Impecunious) 
Provincial  Councils  (see  Local) 

—  expenditure,  208,  217 

—  generals,  260 
Prussia,  99,  109 
Ptolemy,  48,  62 
P'u-chou  Fu,  241 
Puh-hai,  state,  33,  133,  257 
P'u-k'ou,  165,  174,  253 

Pulo  Condor,  79,  391  (see  Kunlun) 
P'ulun,  Prince,  383 
P'u-lu-t'eh,    or   Buruts,    389   (see 
Kirghis) 


Punishments,  307  (see  Nine  Chap- 
ters) 
Purun-ki  River,  23,  59,  69,  81 
Purveyors,  Army,  44 
Pusan  (see  Fusan) 
Putao  (North  Biu-ma),  13 

Quelpaert,  38,  391 
Queue  (see  Pigtail) 
Quilon,  75-7  (see  Coilon,  Kawlam) 

Raggi,  Sign,  S.,  119 
Railways,  84,   98,   104,   113,   104, 
211,  267,  370 

—  Bhamo  to  Momein,  174 

—  Canton  to  Macao,  114 

—  Ch'ang-sha  to  Nan-ch'ang,  164 

—  Hankow  to  Sz  Ch'wan,  160,  268 

—  Kiang  Si  (Kewkiang  to  Nan- 
ch'ang,  etc.),  163 

—  Peking  to  Hankow,  253 

to  Kalgan,  168 

to  Mukden,  84 

—  Shanghai    to     Nanking,     176, 
253 

to  Ningpo,  158,  212,  267 

—  Shashi  to  Hingi,  160 

—  Siberian,  104,  366 

—  Tientsin  to  P'u-k'ou  (Nanking), 
253 

—  Tsinan  to  Kiao  Chou,  171 

—  Tonquin,  74,  108,  173 
Rain,  prayers  for,  301 
Ramie  fibre,  149 
Rangoon,  48,  62,  83 
Rapids,  159 

Rates,  local,  209,  301 
Ratio  decidendi,  332,  342 
Rebellions  (see  Mussulmans,  Tai- 

pings) 
Red  Cross,  119 

—  Earth  State,  29  (see  Siam) 
hairs,  36,  93 

—  River,  21,  85,  172 

—  salt,  241 

—  Sea,  36,  48,  52,  57,  80 

Reed    flats,    222,    228,    238    (see 

Rushes) 
Reforms,  209,  242,  261,  265,  287, 

307,  368 
Regent  (see  Prince  Ch'un,  Jun.) 
Regis,  S.J.,  106 
Religion,  41,  132,  293-306 

—  natural,  302 

—  political,  309 

—  privileges  for,  339 
RepubUc,   344,   365-86  (see  Min 

kwoh,  Kung-hoh) 


412 


INDEX 


Republic,  changes  under,  15,  184, 
188,  190,  281,  288,  292,  296, 
297,  308 

Republican  China,  177 

Revenue,  2,  45,  167,  191,  193, 
198,  205-21  (see  Grain) 

—  salt,  222-44 

Revolts    (see    Mussulmans,    Tai- 

pings,  "  Boxers") 
Revolution  in  letters,  16,  344 

—  of  A.D.  1911,  causes,  268 

—  of  220  B.C.  (unifying),  318,  320 
Rhinoceros,  48 

Rho,  Jacques,  S.J.,  95 

Rhubarb,  57,  79 

Ricci,  Matthew,  S.J.,  28,  86,   87, 

90,  94,  109 
Rice  salaries,  205 

—  trade,  144,  164  (see  Grain) 

—  tribute,  1 97  (see  Grain  Revenue) 
Richthofen's  theory,  11 

Rival  states  period,  43  (see  Feudal, 

Vassal) 
River  steamers,  13,  163 

—  systems,  10-13  (see  Drainage) 
Riviere,  Henri,  107 

Roads,  definition  of,  86  (see  Trade 
Routes) 

—  Great,  59,  69,  73,  81,  83-5,  127 

—  in  land,  74,  78 

—  to  Manchuria,  84 

—  to  Tibet,  82 

Robertson,  Sir  Brooke,  153,  249 
Rockhill,  Hon.  W,  W.,  56,  71.  201 
Rodney  Gilbert,  11,  69,  84,  302 
Roman  parallels,   16,   19,  21,  25, 

26,  126,  296,  315,  317,  329,  337 

(see  Greek) 

—  trade,  49,  52,  62 

"  Romania,"  78  (see  El  Rum) 

Rubruquis,  67,  73,  77,  105,  135 

Ruggieri,  S.J.,  87 

Rumania,  121 

Russia,  Early,  34,  102,  126,  136 

—  missions  to  and  from,  103 

—  Mongol  conquest  of,  34 

—  the  name,  3 1 
Russian  acquisitions,  102-5 

—  chvurch,  103,  303  (see  Orthodox) 

—  College,  306 

—  competition,  3 

—  guards  at  Peking,  102 

—  shipping,  169 

—  teas,  146,  162-3 

—  trade,  146,  151,  161,  163,  169 
Russians,   34,   40,  84,  98,   101-4, 

126,  134,138,  161,290 
Russia's  "  free  resources,"  207 


Russo-Japanese  War,  115, 117,  307 
Ruysbroek,  105  [see  Rubruquis) 

Sables,  46,  136 
SacharofI,  200     . 
Sadi  Wakas,  68 
Saigon,  107 

Saints,  Buddhist,  180,  390 
Sairam,  73,  79 
SaJch,  69  (see  Tea) 
Salaries,  205,  209,  255 
Salt  barter,  45,  232 
Salt  flats,  228,  235 

—  revenue,  181,  205,  222-44 

—  trade,  11,  14,  44,  152,  181,  206, 
220, 251 

—  wells    and    ponds    (see    Wells, 
Ponds) 

"  Sam  Collinson,"  247 

Samoyedes,  132 

Samsah  Inlet,  156  (see  San-tu  Ao) 

Samshu,  46,  391 

Sam-shui,  101,  391 

—  trade,  153,  173 

Sanciano,  87  (see  Shang-ch'wan) 

Sandwich  Is.  (see  Honolulu) 

Sang  Hung-yang,  222,  238 

Sanitation,  183 

Sansing,  175 

Sanslcrit,  31 

San-tu  Ao,  156,  168,  391 

Saracens,  241 

Sarbaza,  56 

Sarikol,  81 

Sartak,  Khan,  73 

Sassanides,  68 

Satraps,  23,  39,  44,  95,  325 

Savages,  9  (see  Aborigines,  Tribes, 

Non-Chinese) 
Sayang,  82 

Schaal,  or  Schall,  Adam,  S.  J.,  95 
Schiltberger,  136 

Schools,  208,  272  (see  Universities) 
Science,  95,  132,  294 
Scot  and  lot,  193 
Scotra,  75  (see  Socotra) 
Scythians,  21,  127  (see  Hiung-nu, 

Huns) 
Sea  routes,  85 
Sea-salt,  223,  236 
Sea-slugs,  289 
Sea  trade,  25,  32,  33,  40,  47-52, 

56,  63,  67,  70,  71 
Secretaries,    209,    338,    341,    356 

(see  Clerks) 
Secret      Societies,      303-4      (see 

"  Boxers,"  Shang-tiHwei,  White 

Lily) 


INDEX 


413 


Sedans,  163,  261 
Seilan,  76  (see  Ceylon) 
Semedo,  Pere,  76 
Semenat,  76 
Senate,  373 

Seraglio,  249  (see  Palace) 
Serbia,  121 
Seres,  Serica,  62,  87 
Serfs,  44,  194 
Settled  states,  59 
Sha-chou,  74  (see  Tun-hwang) 
Shaher,  or  Shehr,  75 
Shahidula,  63 
Shakyamuni,  296,  297 
Shamanism,  302 
Shamien,  141,  391 
Shan,    origin    of     word,    29    {sec 
Siam,  Chao) 

—  Empire,  13,  69,  234 

—  States,  37,  74,  101,  107,  109, 
145,  173  (see  Laos,  Muang-u, 
Momein) 

Shan-hai  Kwan,  84,  168,  248 
Shans,  7-9,  22,  29,  35,   140,   183 

(sec  Siam) 
Shan  Si,  5,  34,  102,  201,  222,  240 
Shan  Tung,  5,  33,  57,  231,  236,  238 

Promontory,  4,   176 

trade,  57 

"  Shantungs,"  170 
Shang-ch'wan,  87  (see  Sanciano) 
Shang  dynasty,  18 
bone  inscriptions,   343   (see 

Bone) 
Shanghai,    23,    79,    96,    98,    165, 

171-2,  197,  246 

—  opened,  98 

—  trade,  171-2 

Shang-ti   Hwei,    305    (see    Secret 

Societies) 
Shara  Muren,  85 
Shashi,  160,  391 
Shehr  (see  Shaher) 
Shen  Kia-pen,  341 
Shen  Puh-hai,  317 
Shen  Si,  5,  19,  62,262 
Shen-yang,  391  (see  Mukden) 
Sheng-chang,  179,  253  (see  Gover- 
nors) 
Sheng-king  (city),  (see  Mukden) 
Sheng  King  (province),  5,  165 
Shigatsz,  82  ^-j 

Shignan,  65,  74,  81  ^' 

SKi-ki,     18     (see     Sz-ma    Ts'ien, 

Histories) 
Shilka  River,  133,  138,  391 
Shimonoseki  Treaty,  116,  391 
Shipping,  150,  157,  165,  166 


Shipping  Chinese,  150,  157,  160 

—  German,  153 

—  Japanese,   150,   157,   160,   101, 
164,  166 

Shiraz,  78 

Shiu-heng,  87  {see  Chao-k'ing) 

Shogiin,  115,  393 

Shroffs,  255,  391 

Shuga,  82 

Shuh,  Empire,  24  (see  Sz  Ch'wan) 

Shuh,     Kingdom,     5,     222     (see 

Sz  Ch'wan) 
"  Shum,"    the   Viceroy,    386   {sec 

Ts'en  Ch'un-hiian) 
Si-an  Fu,  4,  23,  24,  33,  52,.  55,  59, 

63,  64,  69,  391 
Si    Iviang,    13,    21,    60,    101    (see 

West  and  Canton  rivers) 
Si-ning  Fu,  69,  82,  392 
Siam,  31,  36,  37,  40,  53,  74,  140 

(see  Shans) 

—  modern,  140 

—  trade  with,  1 72 

Siamese,  8,  49  (see  Shans  and  Chao) 

—  Early,  29,  62,  69,  140 

—  Modern,  9 
Siang,  river,  6,  61 

Siberia,  28,  54,  104,  127^40,  191 

—  Railway,  366  (see  Railways) 
Sibir,  135  (sec  Issibur) 

Sicily,  57 
Sikkim,  392 

—  Convention,  100 
Silk  fabrics.  154,  159 

—  revenue,  45,  191 

—  trade,  45,  49,  50,  54,  57,  62,  07, 
79,  146,  154,  159 

—  wild,  170  {see  Oak) 

Silver,  42,  57,  91,  207,  216,  283 
(see  Bullion) 

—  drain  of,  97 

—  Exchange,   142,    172,   207  (see 
Exchange) 

—  export,  57 

"  Sin,"  external,  281 

Sina,   62  (see  Thin,  Ts'in,   Seres, 

Tzinistan) 
Singapore,  48,  83,  94,  298 
Sin  Kiang  (see  New  Territory) 
Sin-min  T'un,  175 
Skins  (see  Hides) 
Slaves,  52,  195,  300,  337 
Slavs,  134 

"  Small"  River,  223-4  {see  Lesser) 
Smith,  Rev.  A.,  271 
Smuggling,  204,  290 
Snobbery,   absence  of,    183,   250, 

281  (see  Democracy) 


414 


INDEX 


Soap,  46,  147 

Social  tabu,  44,  183,  300 

Socotra,  75,  83 

Sogd,  66-8,  128 

Soldier,  the  Chinese,  263,  270 

Soli,  75 

Solons,  133,  262 

Songchin,  392 

Sons,  287,  302 

Soochow,  116,  175,  187 

Soul,  84 

South  Seas,  32,  36,  40,  51,  55,  57, 

71,  94  (see  Indian  Ocean) 
South  Yiieh,  48  (see  Nan-yiieh) 
Southern  China,  19,  23 
Soy,  392 
Soya  hispida,   148,   166  (see  Soy, 

Beans) 
Spain  one  with  Portugal,  90 
Spaniards,  36,  89,  117 

—  Early,  78,  85 

—  in  Annam,  107 
Spheres  of  influence,  101 
Spice  Islands,  92 

Spirits  (liquor),  46,  182,  298  (see 

Drink) 
Spread    of    Chinese    (see   Expan- 
sion) 
Spring    and    autumn    annals,    17 

(see  History) 
Squeezed  feet  (see  Foot- binding) 
"Squeezes,"  206,  216,  220,  221, 

250,  290 
Srinagar,  63 
Stamp  duties,  182 
Standards  of  currency,    143   (see 

Currency,  Exchange) 
Staunton,  Sir  Geo.,  337 
Steam,  86 
Steamers,  13,  162 
Steam-launches,  163 
Stein,  Sir  Aurel,   18,   32,   60,   62, 

63,  77,  191,  347,  392 
Stepanhoff,  138 
Stephen,  Sir  Oas.  F.,  308,  318 
St.    John's    Island,    87,    89    (see 

Sanciano,  Shang-ch'wan) 
Stone    city    or    tower,     62    (see 

Daraut,  Tashkend) 
"  Straits,"  the.  142,  386 
Straw  braid,  148,  167,  170 

—  hats,  157 
Strogonoff,  136,  392 
Sii-chou  Fu,  252,  378 
Siian-hwa  Fu,  235 
Suan-t'ung,  Emperor,  372-73 
Submarines,  86 

Sugar,  57,  91,  147-8,  153-6 


Sugar  "  rigging,"  148 
Suh-chou  (An  Hwei),  231 

(Kan  Suh),  23,  59,  74,  79 

Sui,   dynasty,   28-9,  38,   53,   192, 

392, 
Suicide,  273,  331 
Suifenho,  174 
Sukchur    (see    Suh-chou    of   Kan 

Suh) 
Suleiman  the  Arab,  54 
Suliman  the  Panthay,  264 
Sultan  of  Turkey,  120 
Sulu,  32,  36,  40 
Sumatra,  32,  36,  54,  57,  65,  75-8, 

94,   96,   392 
— ■  coolies,  94 

—  Dutch  in,  94 

—  oil,  146,  149 
Summer  Palace,  98 
Sumptuary  laws,  44 
Sun,  family,  24 
Siin-chou  Fu,  41 
Siin-tsz,  philosopher,  313 

Sun  Yat-sen,  372,  374,  370,  378, 

386 
Sung,  dynasty  of  Liu,  27,  392 
(the  great),  33,  34,  38,  56, 

71,  139,  157,  197,  228,  237,  241, 

335  (seeManzi) 

—  the  word,  392 

—  I^ao-jen,  378 
Suomi,  130  (see  Finns) 
Suzerainty,  116 

Swatow,  56,  98,  110,  223,  392 

—  river,  223,  224 

—  trade,  148 
Sweden,  117 
Switzerland,  119 
Swords,  57 

—  as  coins,  43  (see  Knife  coins) 
Sycee,  213 

Syndicates,  167,  211,  381 

Syr,  23,  292  (see  Ts'in,  Sina,  etc.) 

Syria,  22,  23,  55 

Syriac,  32,  55,  72 

Syrians,    22,    23,    48-9,    77,    106, 

132,  348 
System  of  government,  23,  177- 

90 
Sz  Ch'wan,  3,  9,  23,  60,  197,  202, 

229,  248 

cotton,  145 

East  and  West  differences,  3 

opened,  100 

salt,  229-31 

tribes,  8,  9 

Sz-li,  392  (see  Syr,  Ta-ts'in,  etc.) 
Sz-ma,  dynasty,  25,  392 


INDEX 


415 


Sz-ma,  family,  25 

—  Ts'ien,  historian,  18,  25,  205 
Sz-mao,  101,  10!),  173  (see  Esmok) 

Tabriz,  73 

Tabu,  183  {.see  Social) 

Tachibana,  M.,  77 

Tael,     142,     172,    207,    392    (see 

Exchange,  Currency) 
Tagarma,  74 

Tai,  the  race,  29,  140  (see  Shan) 
Taipinga,  41,   106,  200,  203,  225, 

227,  228,  245,  248,  260,  305,  392 
T'ai-wan,  92,  392 

—  Fu,  98 
T'ai-yiian  Fu,  241 
Tajiks,  53  (see  Arabs) 
Takakusu,  M.,  76 

Takow,  392  (see  T'ai-wan  Fu) 

Taku,  112,  168,  247,  392 

Talas,  64,  66,  67,  73 

Tolas,  the,  74 

Talecan,  74 

Ta-Uen  Wan,   105,   110,   167,  392 

(see  Dairen,  Dalny) 
Tamerlane,  78,  135 
Tamra  (see  Tan-lo) 
Tamsui,  80,  98 
Tan,  22  (see  Burma) 
T'an  Yen-k'ai,  262 
Tana,  75,  77 
T'ang,   dynasty,    30,    33,    38,    07, 

194,  339 

—  "  men  of,"  30,  340,  392 
Tang-ch'ang,  392 
Tang-hiang,  392 

Tangla  range,  13 

Tangut,  34,  55,  168,  392  (see  Hia 

state) 
Tan-lo,  391  (see  Quelpaert) 
Tao,  division,  189 
Tao,  principle,  314 
Taoism,  72,  295,  297,  303,  317 
Tao-kwang,  Emperor,  304 
Tarbagatai,  73,  103,  137-8 
Tarim  River,  55,  59,  128-9,  377 
Tarsando,  392  (see  Darchendo,  Ta- 

tsien-lu) 
Tartar,  the  word,  392 

—  "  Emperors,"  128 

—  garrisons,  160 

—  generals,  258,  260 

Tartars,  19,  24,  27,  30,  35,  41,  46, 
129,  130,  195,  327,  339,  361 
(see  Mongols,  Tobols,  Turks, 
Tunguses) 

Tartary  routes,  23 

Tashkend,  62,  64,  79,  127,  366,  392 


Tashkurgan,  62,  63,  74,  392  (see 

Stone  City) 
Tata,  130,  197,  392  (see  Tartar) 
Ta-tsien-lu,     82,     233,     392     (see 

Darchendo) 
Ta-Ts'in,  23,  28,  32,  49,  50,  62,  87, 

95,    102,    392    (see    Syr,    Thin, 

Romans,  Franks,  etc.) 

—  envoy,  52 

—  means  "  Franks,"  28 

—  monastery,  72  (see  Nestorians) 

—  trade,  49,  62 

Ta-tsz,    35,    197,    392    (see   Tata, 

Man-tsz) 
Tatungkow,  174 
Taugas,  or  Tau-hwa-sh,  68 
Tax-collectors,  209 
Taxes,  57,  182  (see  Duties,  Likin, 

Revenue) 
Taxila,  64 

Tazi,  or  Ta-shih  (see  Tajiks) 
Tchimkend,  64 
Tchin,  79  (see  Thin,  Sina,  Chi-na, 

Tzinistan) 
Tea,  55,  57,  69,  82,  85,  138,  163, 

392 

—  and  Tibet,  3,  57,  159,  233 

—  "  boiling,"  81 

—  Ceylon,  146,  162 

—  Indian,  143,  146,  162 

—  Java,  162 

—  smugghng,  117,  142 

—  trade,  57,  103,  138,  142-3,  157, 
227 

Tehran,  73 

Te-i-chi  (Deutsch),  99 

Telegraphs,  117,  211 

Telephones,  211 

Temperance,  288 

Temple  feasts,  301 

T  endue,  84  (see  Kukukhoto, 
Kwei-hwa) 

Tengri  Tagh,  392  (see  T'ien-shan) 

T'eng-yiieh  (see  Momein) 

Termed,  79 

Terranuova,   112 

Teutonic  tongues,  7 

Textile  Commission,  145 

Thai  (see  Tai,  Shan) 

Theodore,  Czar,  136 

"  Thin,"  State  (see  Sina,  Tzini- 
stan, etc.) 

"  Thirteen  Hongs,"  98,  141 

"  Thousand  Buddha  Grotto,"  77 

"  Thousand  Springs,"  64 

Three  Boy  Emperors,  248 

Tibet,  3,  34,  37.  39,  80,  81,  100,  377 

—  the  word,  393 


416 


INDEX 


Tibetan  dynasties,  27,  28 

—  Expedition   of   1904,    82,    101, 
370 

—  liighlands,  6 

— -inscriptions,  11  {see  Ancient) 

—  language,  31 

—  trade,  57,   100,   159,   168,   174, 
233,  3G6 

—  tribes,  8,  9,  14,  19,22 
Tibetans,  20,  180 

—  and  Siamese,  69,  139 

—  Early,  13,  21,  139 

—  first  aggression,  31,  32 

—  in  Turkestan,  32,  55 
T'ieh-ling,  175 

Tien,  Kingdom,  5,  222  {see  Yiin 

Nan) 
Tien-li,  faith,  304 
Tien-peh,  or  Tin-pdk,  89 
T'ien-shan,    59,    393    {see   Tengri 

Tagh) 
Tientsin,  4,  34,  98,  167,  187,  237, 

247,  369,  393 

—  massacre,  99 

—  river,  247 

—  trade,  84,  148,  151,  167 
area,  4,  84,  168  {see  Trade) 

—  treaty,  98,  142,  247,  299 
Tih-hwa  Fu  (capital  of  Sin  Kiang, 

see  Urumtsi) 
Timber,  157 
Ting,  Admiral,  270 
T'ing-chou  Fu,  224 
Ting-hai,  227,  393 
Titles,  changed,  179 

—  Sale  of  {see  Ofifice) 
Titsineh,  93 

Toba,  ^dynasty,  24,  26,  28,  34,  51, 
52,  129,  133,  393(«eeWei) 

—  family,  34 

Tobacco,   91,    147,    182,   246   {see 

Cigarettes) 
Tobar,  Pere,  70 
Tobolsk,  103,  135,  136 
Tobol-Tartars,  136 
Toctamish  135 
Tokhara,  64,  68-9,  77 
Tokmak,  64 
Tokto,  235 
Toky5,  393 
Tola,  river,  73,  80,  131 
Tomsk,  136 

Toniclanguages,  19,  353,  360 
Tonquin,  8,  21,   23,   57,   85,    107, 

172,  265,  365,  393 
Toro,  river,  85 
Tortoise-shell,  42 

—  inscriptions,  343  {see  Bone) 


Torture,  283,  317,  318,  325 
Touch,  of  silver,  213 
Tourane,  57,  173 
Tournon,  Mgr.,  118 
Toys,  147 
Trade  areas,  3,  12,  34,  168 

—  border,  128 

—  early,  23,  42,  128 

—  modern,   141-76 

—  prohibitions,  89 

—  routes,  32,  57-86,  161 

—  Transhipment,    155,    160,    162, 
172 

Traders,  Chinese  as,  291 

—  disqualifications  of,  53 
Trading  missions,  139 
Transfer  fees,  182 
Transit-passes,  153,  249  (see  Likin) 
Treason,  336 

Treasurer,  Provincial,  179 
Treasury,  207  {see  Fisc,  ^rarium) 
Treaties  (see  Table,  pp.  122-5) 

—  with  Austria,  119 

Belgium,  113 

Brazil,  120 

Congo  State,  120 

Corea,  116 

Denmark,  117 

England,  98,  100,  101,  106, 

109,  114,  142,  144,  247,  299 

France,  98,  106-8 

Germany,  110,  381 

Holland,  94 

Italy,  119 

Japan,  115,  116,  251 

Mexico,  120 

Norway,  120 

Peru,   119 

Portugal,  89,  114 

Prussia,  109 

Russia,    98,    103,    105,    138, 

365 

Spain,  117 

Sweden,  120 

United  States,  112,  151 

Treaty-ports,  100,  142,  189 

—  forty- seven,  175 
Trebizond,  67,  77 

Tribes,  distribution  of,  7,  24,  183, 

203 
Tribute,   26,   29,   36,   42,   46,   56, 

100,  135-6,  139-40 
"Tribute"   from  Europeans,   93, 

100,  118 
Tripartite  China,  24 
Triumvirate,     ancient,      17     (see 

Duumvirate) 
Ts'ai  Ac,  385 


INDEX 


417 


Tsaidam,  81,  393 

Ts'an-cheng  Yiian,  380  (see  Par- 
liament) 

Ts'an-i  Yiian,  374,  377  {see  Tar- 
liament) 

Ts'ang  Chou,  239 

Ts'ao  family  and  dynasty,  24  {see 
Wei) 

Ts'en  Ch'un-hiian,  38G  {see 
"  Shum") 

Tseng  Kwoh-fan,  24G,  305 

Tseng,  Marquess,  246,  305,  365-6 

Ts'i  dynasty  (Chinese),  27 

(Tartar),  27 

—  kingdom,  5,  43,  238 
Tsi-nan  Fu,  170,  175 
Tsiang-kun,  180,  257 
Tsin  dynasty,  24,  33 

Ts'in  dynasty,  18,  19,  24,  43 
Ts'in  "Great,"  23,   392  {see  Ta- 

ts'in) 
Ts'in  people,  23  {see  Syr,  Syrians) 
Ts'in- wang  Tao,  168,  393 
Ts'ing-tao,    170,    381    {see    Kiao 

Chou) 
Tsitsihar,  85,   127,   175  {see  Heh- 

lung  Kiang) 
T soling,  258  {see  Niuru) 
Tso  Tsung-t'ang,  81 
Ts'iian-chou  Fu,   32,   55,   70,   71, 

74,  88,  89  {see  Zaitun) 
Tsung-li  Yamen,  393  {see  Boards) 
Tsung-shih,  273 
Tsuruhaitu,  84 
Tsushima,  or  Tui-ma,  393 
Tsz-cheng  Yiian,  373 
Tuhkun,  179,  251 
Tulishen,  103 
T'umu,  36,  393 

Tunguses,  30,  39,  47,  128,  165,  181 
Tungusic  dynasties,  24-9,  240 

—  races,  23,  128-30,  165 
Tunguz,  the  word,  393 
Tun-hwang,  23,  63,  73,  77,  191 
T'ung-kiang-tsz,  175 
Tung-kwan  city,  223,  393 
T'ung-kwan  Pass,  10 
T'ung-meng  Hivei,  376  (see  Kwoh- 

min  Tang) 
Tung-t'ing  Lake,  10,  19,  103,  393 
Turanians,  19,  136 
Turfan,  59,  64,  78,  79,  83 
Tiirgas,  64,  132 

Turguts,  103.  389  (see  Kalmucks) 
Turk,  the  word,  29,  130,  393 
Turkestan,  1,  2,  21,  32,  34,  37,  51, 

129,    139,    269,    365,    377    (see 

Sin  Kiang) 


Turkestan  becomes  Tibetan,  32, 

55 
Turki,  180 
Turkish  dynasties,  38,  193,  240 

—  language,  29,  31  {see  Ancient) 

—  monuments,  31 
Turko-Tartars,  14 

Turks.  21,  29,  54,  64,  120,  128 

—  of  Turkey,  121 

—  Central,  Eastern,  or  Northern, 
04,  132 

—  subdued,  30 

—  Western,    30,    53,    64,    67,    68, 
132  (see  Dizabul) 

Tutuh,  251,  253,  268  {see  Military 

Governors) 
Tut'ung,  180,  257 
Twan  K'i-jwei,  386 
Twelve  Tables,   315  (see   Roman 

parallels) 
TwoCheh,  197,  226 
Two  Hu,  229  (see  Hu  Kwang) 

—  Hwai,  227 

—  Kiang,  229  ' 

—  Kwang,  13,  108,  228 
Tycoon,  393  {see  Shogun) 
Tzinistan,     63,     79     (see     Tchin, 

Thin,  etc.) 

Uliassutai,   70,   81,   84,   127,   137, 

235,  393 
Umbrellas,  147 
United  League,  376-7  (see  T'ung- 

meng) 
United  States  (see  America) 
Universities,  164,  176,  383 
Upper    Burma,    taken,    100    {see 

Burma) 
Urga,  84,  127,  132,  180,  387,  390, 

393  (see  K'ulun) 
Uriangkha,  38,  393 

—  dai,  38 

Uriankhai,  389,  393 
Uruguay,  121 
Urumtsi,  59,  73 
Usbegs,  82 

Ush,  83 

Ussuri,  98,  103,  138 

Valley  of  Yang-tsze,  6 

Van  Braam,  94 

Van  Hoorn,  93 

Vandals,  129 

Vasco  de  Gama,  75 

Vassal  China,  314  (see  Feudal) 

Vasudeva,  47  {see  Indo-Scythians) 

Verbiest,  S.J.,  95 


418 


INDEX 


Vial,  Pere,  8 

Viceroys,  178 

—  "  Three  Good."  187,  211,  242, 
255,  266,  268,  369 

Vissicre,  Prof.  A.,  269 

Vladivostock,  105,   170,  393 

Voguls,   136 

Volga,  73,  103 

Voluntary  ports,    156,    168,    171, 

174 
Wa  (.see  Wo) 
Wade,  Sir  T.,  117,  175,  247,  249, 

256 
Waggons,   61,   66,   73  {see  Carts, 

High  Carts) 
Wahab,  the  Arab,  67 
Wakhan,  60 

Wala,  103,  136,  389  {see  Eleuth) 
Wall,    the   Great,     14,    84,     180, 

236 
Walled  cities,  15,  184,  317 
Wallenberg,  Count,  120 
Wan  Men,  159 
Wang-hia  Treaty,  112 
Wangpoo  River  (Shanghai),  393 
War  (see  Japan,  Russia,  "  Boxers," 

Franco) 
War,  Our  First,  96,  112 
Second,  94,   98,   103,  106-7, 

109,  112,  141,  146 
Ward,  Artemug,  183 
Warrants,  187 

—  salt,  231,  237 
Washington  Treaty,  112 
Wassili,  134 

Waterways,  233  {see  Routes) 
Wax,  159 

Wealth,  6,  45,  282 
Wei,    Chinese    dynasty,    24,    393 
{see  Ts'ao) 

—  Tartar   dynasty,    27,    393    (see 
Toba) 

—  River,  391  (see  Oech,  Oxus) 
(Ho  Nan  and  Chih  Li),  236, 

393 
(in  Shon  Si),  4,  10,  14,  76, 

236,  241,  393 
Wei-hai  Wei,  101,  110,  HI,  171, 

306,  393 
Wei-hwei  Fu,  236 
Wei  Kwang-t'ao,  241 
Wei  Yang,  317 

Weights  and  Measures,  251,  346 
Wells,  salt,  222,  228,  231,  238 
Wenchow,  22,  42,  157,  197,  225 
West,  Far,  23,  59  (see  Europeans) 
Western  Ocean  Men,  90,  94,  102 

(see  Portugal) 


West  River,  13,  21,  61,  83,  100 
(see  Canton,  Si  Kiang,  Pearl, 
etc.) 

« Valley,  222  (see  Drainage) 

Whampoa,  106.  112,  141,  393-4 

White  Czar,  126 

—  Lily  Sect,  300  (see  Secret 
Societies) 

—  Ocean  Faith,  305 

—  races,  126 

WilUam  or  Wilhelm  II,  104,  367, 

381  (see  Kaiser) 
Williams,  Dr.  S.  W.,  131,  141 
Wine  (see  Spirits) 
Wireless,  86 
Wirth,  Albert,  135       - 
Witte,  Count,  207 
Wives,  Chinese,  284 

—  Tartar,  46 
Wizardry,  328 

Wo  or  Wa  tribes,  20,  394 
Women,     44,     46,     141,     285-6, 

296-7,  327,  335,  336.  377,  384 
Women's  dress.  147,  286 
Wonsan.  394  (see  Genzan,  Yiian- 

shan) 
Wood,  Lieut..  79 
Wool,  167,  169 
Woollens,  142 
Worship  of  Heaven,  381 
Writing,  Ancient,  344 

—  ignorance  of,  328 
Written  systems,  8,  10 
Wu,  Empire  of,  24,  52 

—  Kingdom  of,  222 
Wu-ch'ang   Fu,  52,  229,  265,  372 

(see  Hankow) 
Wu-chou  Fu,  13,  100,  155,  173 
Wuhu,  100,  164,  394 
Wu  San-kwei,  39,  234 
Wusun,  tribe,  134 
WuTi,  21,  22,  44,  59,  82,  223,  325, 

389 

—  his  conquests,  23  (see  Han 
Wu  Ti) 

Wu  T'ing-fang  (Ng  Choy),    341, 

386 
Wylie,  Alex.,  76 

Xavier,  St.  Francis,  87 

Ya-chouFu,  57,  159,  233 

Yaksa.  103.  138 

Yakub  Beg.  81,  104,  264 

Yall  River,  85 

Yamens,  187,  189,  219,  260,  394 

Yangchow,  229,  246 

Yang  Kien,  28 


INDEX 


419 


Yang  Ti,  28,  53 

Yang-tsze  River,  course  of,   161, 

220 
defences,  379 

—  gorges,  159,  231 

—  navigation,  12 

—  sources,  12,  161 

—  Upper,  24,  69,  399  {see  Kin-sha) 

—  Valley,  3,  6,  12.  231 

—  word,  the,  394 
Yao  taotai,  245 

—  tribes,  7 
Yards,  salt,  230 
Yarkand,  59,  02,  74,  79 
Yarmak,  130 

Yarn,  Chinese,  159  {see  Cotton) 

—  Indian,  145 

—  Japanese,  145,  168 
Yatung,  or  Gnatong,  1 74 
Year,  Chinese,  374 

Yeddo,  or  Yedo,  Treaty,  115,  394 

{see  Lord  Elgin) 
Yeh,  Viceroy,  98 
Yellow  Czar,  137 

—  races,  120,  236 

—  River,  4,  101,  195,  208,  211,  230 

Bend  or  Loop,  19,  34,  84,  127 

cradle  of  Chinese  race,  4,  230 

mouths,  4,  10 

navigation,  11 

sources,  10,  09,  82,  161 

vagaries,  237,  250 

Yelu  Hiliang,  73 

Yenissei  River,  130 

Yezdedgerd,  68 

Yin  Shan,  14,  394 

Ying  (camp),  269 

Yodja)ui,  61 

Yoh-fah    (of    200    B.C.    and   a.d. 

1912),  321,  375 
Yii,  Emperor,  16 
Yiian,  dynasty,  38  (see  Kublai) 

—  River,  6 

—  K'eh-ting,  382 


Yiian- Kung  P'u,  394 

Yiian- shan,  394  (see  Wonsan, 
Genzan) 

Yiian  Shi-k'ai,  146,  107,  181,  185, 
187,  219,  244,  257,  205,  208,  292 
(see  "  Tliree  Good  Viceroys  ") 

dismissed,  268,  371 

Emergency  President,  374 

"  Emperor,"    384 

involved  with  Emperor,  368 

Permanent  President,  374 

—  —  recalled,  372 
Yiieban,  131,  134 

Yueh,  19,  21-3,  42,  101,  222 

—  the  Two,  5,  21,  22  (see  South) 
Yiieh-chi,  64,  134 

—  Fu,  65 
Yugm-s,  136 
Yule,  Colonel,  58 

Yiin  Nan,  3,  8,  12,  22-4,  34,  48, 
60,  83,  99,  107,  172,  174,  195, 
203,  224,  233,  298  (see  Tien) 

conquered,  34 

explored,    107 

independent,   385 

Yiin-nanFu,  85,  108,  109,  174 

— •  opium,  247 

—  trade,  155,  172-3 

—  tribes,  8 
Yung-ch'ang  Fu,  52 


Zafar,  75  (see  Djafar) 

Zagros,  Mts.,  61 

Zaitun,  32,  56,  71,  74,  77,  96,  156, 

1 97  ( see  Chang-chou  and  Ts'iian- 

chou) 
Zanuj,  75 

Zanzibar,  57.  71,  75,  394 
Zemarchus,  64,  66,  67 
Zend-Avesta,  61 
Zi,  Paul  (see  Frontispiece) 
Zoroastrians,  67  (see  Persians) 
Zuiderzee,  11,  228,  394 


29 


PRINTED  BT 

HAZELL,  WATSON  AND  VINET,  LD., 

LONDON   AND   AYLESBURY, 

ENGLAND. 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

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